Mother Shipton Theory

Mother Shipton was a prophetess who made many predictions throughout her life. Her most famous prediction was that the world would end in 1881. Even though she was wrong, she seems to have a creepily high prediction rate and prophesizes another horrible event to occur soon.

Mini Biography

Ursula Southeil, also known as Mother Shipton, was born supposedly “of the devil” in 1488 in Norfolk, England. As she grew up she showed talents in foresight and prophecy. As her predictions came true one after another, she started to try to predict events that ocurred a lot further into the future. This started to scare a lot of the village people.

Eventually, she started to write down her prophecies and predictions. These came through as rhyme and verse. By 1641, only one book of her poems had been published, and it had been published eighty years after she had died. This publication didn’t have any predictions of the end of the world, only regional predictions.

Charles Hindley published the second edition of her predictions in 1862. This edition contained many interesting predictions concerning technological advancements and the end of the world. However, Charles Hindley later admitted that he had composed the prophecies.

Her most famous predictions

The Charles Hindley edition contained a long poem with countless predictions. The most famous one being a verse predicting that the world would end in 1881.

“The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty one”

Although these prophecies were supposedly forged by Charles Hindley, the poem contains interesting and sometimes eerily accurate predictions. A portion of the poem is displayed below.

“And roaring monsters with man atop
Do seem to eat the verdant crop. (Tractors?)
And men shall fly as birds do now, (Airplanes?)
And give away the horse and plough.
When pictures live with movements free, (Videos?)
When boats like fishes swim the sea, (Submarines?)
When men like birds shall scour the sky
Then half the world, blood drenched shall die. (The Sixth Mass Extinction?)

For those who live the century through
in fear and trembling this shall do.
Flee to the mountains and the dens
to bog and forest and wild fens.

For storms will rage and oceans roar
when Gabriel stands on sea and shore, (Climate Change?)
and as he blows his wondrous horn
old worlds die and new be born. (World Reborn?)

And flooding waters rushing in,
will flood the lands with such a din (Global Warming?)
that mankind cowers in muddy fen
and snarls about his fellow men.

He bares his teeth and fights and kills
and secrets food in secret hill (Doomsday Vault?)
and ugly in his fear, he lies
to kill marauders, thieves and spies.

And before the race is built anew,
a silver serpent comes to view (UFOs?)
and spew out men of like unknown (Aliens?)
to mingle with the earth now grown
cold from its heat and these men can
enlighten the minds of future man
to intermingle and show them how
to live and love and thus endow.
the children with the second sight. (Luminous Humans?)
a natural thing so that they might
grow graceful, humble and when they do
the golden age will start anew.”(World Reborn Again?)

Her 2012 prediction

None of her prophecies point exactly to 2012, nevertheless she is commonly associated with the 2012 end of the world prophecies. This is because the second edition that was published said when “men fly as birds do now”, “boats like fishes swim the sea” and “pictures live with movements free”, “then half the world, blood drenched shall die”. In other words, in our day and age, there will be a mass extinction.

Is She Correct?

Considering that the first of her prophecies was published eighty years after she had died and the second publication was admitted to be fake, it’s hard to hold any validity to these prophecies. It doesn’t help this theory out that many people over the internet have taken Mother Shipton’s verses, reworded and injected lines to them and then tried to use them as predictions of such events as 9/11.

Even her last prediction of the end of the world didn’t come true. Thus, I would take this theory with a grain of salt. The only aspects that I think may hold some interesting insights, were the predictions in the poem Charles Hindley claimed to have wrote. Especially since the world being reborn through the help of “unknown” men is theory heard many times over in different 2012 theories.