'ancient prediction'

Legendary English witch and soothsayer, Mother Shipton (circa 1486-1561) seemingly foretold many modern events and phenomena.

Although no biographical information concerning Mother Shipton is based upon trustworthy sources and her identity seems clouded in here-say and flights of fancy, someone did write the verses first published in 1448 then republished in 1641.

The most famous claimed edition of Mother Shipton's prophecies (published in 1862), widely quoted today as if it were the original, contains over a hundred prophetic rhymed couplets in notably non-sixteenth-century language.  Many of the rhymes are obscure and like many obscure riddles - such as those of Nostradamus - can be moulded to fit a number of events.

Still, whoever wrote these verses seems to have had an incredible gift of foresight. 

You be the judge.

ANCIENT PREDICTION

(Popularly entitled, 'Mother Shipton's Prophecy')

And now a word, in uncouth rhyme

Of what shall be in future time.

Then upside down the world shall be

And gold found at the root of tree

All England's sons that plough the land

Shall oft be seen with Book in hand.

The poor shall now great wisdom know

Great houses stand in far-flung vale

All covered o'er with snow and hail.

A carriage without horse will go

Disaster fill the world with woe.

In London, Primrose Hill shall be

In centre hold a Bishop's See

Around the world men's thoughts will fly

Quick as the twinkling of an eye.

And water shall great wonders do

How strange. And yet it shall come true.

Through towering hills proud men shall ride

No horse or ass move by his side.

Beneath the water, men shall walk

Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk.

And in the air men shall be seen

In white and black and even green.

A great man then, shall come and go

For prophecy declares it so.

In water, iron, then shall float

As easy as a wooden boat

Gold shall be seen in stream and stone

In land that is yet unknown.

And England shall admit a Jew

You think this strange, but it is true

The Jew that once was held in scorn

Shall of a Christian then be born.

A house of glass shall come to pass

In England. But Alas, alas

A war will follow with the work

Where dwells the Pagan and the Turk.

These states will lock in fiercest strife

And seek to take each other's life.

When North shall thus divide the south

And Eagle build in Lion's mouth

Then tax and blood and cruel war

Shall come to every humble door.

Three times shall lovely sunny France

Be led to play a bloody dance

Before the people shall be free

Three tyrant rulers shall she see.

Three rulers in succession be

Each springs from different dynasty.

Then when the fiercest strife is done

England and France shall be as one.

The British olive shall next then twine

In marriage with a German vine.

Men walk beneath and over streams

Fulfilled shall be their wondrous dreams.

For in those wondrous far off days

The women shall adopt a craze

To dress like men, and trousers wear

And to cut off their locks of hair.

They'll ride astride with brazen brow

As witches do on broomstick now.

And roaring monsters with man atop

Does seem to eat the verdant crop

And men shall fly as birds do now

And give away the horse and plough.

There'll be a sign for all to see

Be sure that it will certain be.

Then love shall die and marriage cease

And nations wane as babes decrease.

And wives shall fondle cats and dogs

And men live much the same as hogs.

In nineteen hundred and twenty six

Build houses light of straw and sticks.

For then shall mighty wars be planned

And fire and sword shall sweep the land.

When pictures seem alive with movements free

When boats like fishes swim beneath the sea,

When men like birds shall scour the sky

Then half the world, deep drenched in blood shall die.

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

And as he blows his wondrous horn

Old worlds die and new be born.

A fiery Dragon will cross the sky

Six times before this earth shall die

Mankind will tremble and frightened be

For the sixth heralds in this prophecy.

For seven days and seven nights

Man will watch this awesome sight.

The tides will rise beyond their ken

To bite away the shores and then

The mountains will begin to roar

And earthquakes split the plain to shore.

And flooding waters, rushing in

Will flood the lands with such a din

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 hills

And ugly in his fear, he lies

To kill marauders, thieves and spies.

Man flees in terror from the floods

And kills, and rapes and lies in blood

And spilling blood by mankind's hands

Will stain and bitter many lands.

And when the Dragon's tail is gone,

Man forgets, and smiles, and carries on

To apply himself -- too late, too late

For mankind has earned deserved fate.

His masked smile -- his false grandeur

Will serve the Gods their anger stir.

And they will send the Dragon back

To light the sky -- his tail will crack

Upon the earth and rend the earth

And man shall flee, King, Lord, and serf.

But slowly they are routed out

To seek diminishing water spout

And men will die of thirst before

The oceans rise to mount the shore.

And lands will crack and rend anew

You think it strange. It will come true.

And in some far off distant land

Some men -- oh such a tiny band

Will have to leave their solid mount

And span the earth, those few to count,

Who survives this (unreadable) and then

Begin the human race again.

But not on land already there

But on ocean beds, stark, dry and bare

Not every soul on Earth will die

As the Dragon's tail goes sweeping by.

Not every land on earth will sink

But these will wallow in stench and stink

Of rotting bodies of beast and man

Of vegetation crisped on land.

But the land that rises from the sea

Will be dry and clean and soft and free

Of mankind's dirt and therefore be

The source of man's new dynasty.

And those that live will ever fear

The Dragons tail for many year

But time erases memory

You think it strange. But it will be.

And before the race is built anew

A silver serpent comes to view

And spew out men of like unknown

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.

A natural thing so that they might

Grow graceful, humble and when they do

The Golden Age will start anew.

RELATED ARTICLES:

~ Mother Shipton, her Life and Prophecies at 'Mysterious Britain & Ireland; Mysteries, Legends and the Paranormal'

~ Mother Shipton's Cave, Petrifying Well & Historic Park website
~ 'The changing face of Mother Shipton' at BBC