The Bones of Mother Shipton

Today’s showcase details the next pendant design to be offered through Jack’s Attic:  The Bones of Mother Shipton. 

Ursula Southeil (1488 – 1561), better known as Mother Shipton, was an English soothsayer and prophetess who is said to have made dozens of unusually accurate predictions, including the Great Plague of London, the Spanish Armada, and the Great Fire of London.

The most famous example of Mother Shipton’s prophecies foretells many aspects common to modern civilization and predicted the end of the world in 1881.

Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
Quick in the twinkling of an eye.
The world upside down shall be
And gold be found at the root of a tree.
Through hills man shall ride,
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk.
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, and even green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and shown
In a land that’s not yet known.
Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall at last admit a foe.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.