DAY BY DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13750, 24 April 1918, Page 4

DAY BY DAY

.Mother Shipton" appears to be a somewhat mvthical perOld son. Tlie earliest extant Mother reference to her is in an Shipton. anonymous tract published

in London in 1641 and entitled "The Prophecie of Mother Shipton in the Reigne of King Henry YIII., foretelling the Death cf C'ardinn 11 Wolsey, the Lord Percy, and Others, as Also What Should Happen in Insuing Times." Ths pamphlet bear on the title page an alleged portrait of the prophetess and had a large circulation. The original edition is rare Imitations of the work have been numerous. Meteorological predictions of " Mother Shipton " also appeared. William Lilly, astrologer, jn "A Collection of Ancient and Modern Prophecies" (1645), quoted eighteen prophecies which had already been identified with her name, and showed that sixteen had l>een dulv fulfilled. In 1667 Richard Head published what purported to be a full account of her "Life and Death," representing her as a daughter of the devil and of hideous aspect. In the " Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton " (London, 1686), it is stated that she was horn near Knareshorough, July, 1498, was baptised at Ursula Southiel, at 24 married Toby Shipton, a carpenter at Skipton, and died at Clifton in 1561. Innumerable cheap books, chiefly published in the north of England, have since repeated "Mother Shipton's" prophecies in various forms, and even in this day "Mother Shipton's Fortune Telling Book" selL to the credulous. In 1862 Charles Hindley reprinted, in a garbled version, the 1687 edition of Head's life of " Mother Shipton," and introduced verses foretelling the invention of the steam engine and the electric telegraph and the end of the world in 1881. These verses attracted wide attention, but in 1 R 73 Hindiey admitted that ho had forged them. So-called portraits and memorials of her are spurious.