Because of the uncanny manner in which the prophecies of Mother Shipton have been coming to pass during the century past, considerable attention has been attracted to this strange creature of five centuries ago, even those who have in the past scoffed at the weird prediction of this woman are now stirred by curiosity to wonder what will occur next in this direction.

Mother Shipton, we are told, was born in Yorkshire, England, in July 1488, and died in 1559. In books of information she is described as a half mythical English prophetess, baptized Ursula Southeil, who later married Tony Shipton, a builder.

A house of glass shall come to pass

In merry England, but alas!

War will follow with the work

In the land of the bloody Turk,

And State and State in fierce strife,

Shall struggle for each other’s life.

Carriages without horses shall go

And accidents fill the world with woe.

And the center of a bishop’s see,

In London, Primrose Hill, shall be.

Around the world thought shall fly

In the twinkle of an eye.

Through the hills men shall ride

And neither horse nor ass bestride!

Under water men shall walk,

Iron in the water shall float

As easily as a wooden boat.

Gold shall be found and shown

In a land that’s now unknown.

Fire and water shall wonder do

And England shall admit a Jew.

Three times three shall lovely France

Be led to dance a bloody dance

Before the people shall be free;

Three tyrant rulers shall she see

Each spring from a different dynasty.

And when the last great fight is won

England and France shall be as one.

And now a word in uncouth rhyme

Of what shall be in later time.

In those wonderful far-off days

Women shall get a strange new craze

To dress like men and breeches wear

And cut off their beautiful locks of hair,

And ride astride with brazen brow,

As witches do on broomsticks now.

Then love shall die and marriage cease

And babies and sucklings so decrease

That wives shall fondle cats and dogs

And men live much the same as hogs.

In eighteen hundred and ninety-six

Build your house of rotten sticks

For then shall mighty wars be planned

And fire and sword sweep over the land,

And those who live the century through

In fear and trembling this will do.

Fly to the mountains and the glens,

To bogs and forests and wild dens,

For tempests will rage and oceans will roar,

And Gabriel stand on sea and shore

And as he toots his wondrous horn

Old worlds will die and new be born.

In the air men shall be seen,

In white, in black and also green,

Now strange, but yet they shall be true

The world upside down shall be,

And gold shall be found at the roots of a tree.

When picture look alive and movements free,

When ships like fishes swim below the sea,

When men, outstripping bird, can scour the sky,

Then half the world deep drenched in blood shall die.

At the time the prophecy was uttered, Primrose Hill was two and a half miles from London; now it is nearly the heart of the city, but a short distance from Regent’s Square.

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