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Mother Shipton's Prophecies

As if Merlin's Prophecies weren't enough to worry about,..

August 21, 2008

What about Mother Shipton's gruesome prophecies of the imminent end of the world, then?

Well, when it comes to this 15th/16th century Yorkshire seeress, it is no surprise to find that not a single one of the blood-curling world predictions so often attributed to her is actually to be found in the earliest edition of her - and even this didn't appear until about a century after her death!

(Moreover, they have been increasing in number ever since!!) In fact, the only one  that is at all familiar is:

Iron in the water shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat.

And this, as it happens, was part of a spoof originally written (and admitted to) by one Charles Hindley in 1862, which ends with the sobering words:

The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

The well-known story that the originals are in a Sydney library are a pure urban myth!)

A carriage without horse will go,
disaster fill the world with woe.
In London, Primrose Hill shall be
in center hold a bishops sea.

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, 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,
Do you think this strange, but it is true.
The Jew that once was led 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
an 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 broomsticks now.

And roaring monsters with men atop,
does seem to eat the verdent crop.
And men shall fly as birds do now,
and give away the horse and plow.

They'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.

On the Outer Wrappings of the Scrolls

I know I go, I know I'm free,
I know that this will come to be,
Secreted this, for this will be
found by later dynasty.

A dairy maid, a bonnie lass,
shall kick this tome as she does pass
And five generations she shall breed
before one male child does learn to read.

This is then held year by year,
till an iron monster trembling fear,
eats parchment, words and quill and ink,
and mankind is given time to think.

And only when this comes to be
will mankind read this prophecy.
But one man sweets anothers bain
so I shall not have burned in vein.

Found on a Scroll in Another Jar

The signs will be there for all to read;
when man shall do most heinous deed
man will ruin kinder lives;
by taking them as to their wives.
And murder foul and brutal deed:
when man will only think of greed.
and man shall walk as if asleep;
he does not look - he may not peep
And iron men the tail shall do;
and iron cart and carriage too.

The king shall false promise make;
and talk just for talking's sake.
And nations plan horrific war;
the like as never seen before.
and taxes rise and lively down;
and nations wear perpetual frown.

yet greater sign there be to see;
as man nears latter century.
three sleeping mountains gather breath,
and spew out mud, ice and death.
an earthquake swallow town and town;
in lands as yet to me unknown
And Christian one fights Christian two
and nations sigh, yet nothing do.
And yellow men great power gain;
from mighty bear with whom they've lain.

These mightly tyrants will fail to do,
they fail to split the world in two.
But from their acts a danger bred;
an ague, leaving many dead.

And physics find no remedy;
for this is worse than lepresy.
Oh many signs for all to see;
the truth of this true prophecy.

The Last Prophecy

In nineteen hundred and twenty-six
build houses light of straw and sticks.
For then shall mighty wars be planned
and fire and swords 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 the earth shall die.
Mankind will tremble and frightened be
for the six 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 hill
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 hand
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 to the shore.
And lands will crack and rend anew
do 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 mankinds dirt and therefore be,
the source of man's new dynasty.
and those that live will ever fear
the dragon's 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.

The dragon's tail is but a sign
for mankind's fall and man's decline.
and before this prophecy is done
I shall be burned at the stake, at l
My body cinged and my soul set free
You think I utter blasphemy
you're wrong. These things have come to me
this prophecy will come to be.

 

Your humble Ace Reporter

Bob

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