The voices of those who talk about the future are usually remembered by posterity. But if these voices turn out to be true, then they remain in history.
Mother Shipton, the most famous image of a witch in Britain, was named Ursula at birth and was remembered by people for many centuries. This story began back in 1488. Her mother was Agatha Southale, and baby Ursula was born illegitimate when her mother was only 16 years old. According to eyewitnesses, the baby was born a demon immediately. She had a full set of molars, with prominent incisors and canines. The head was grotesquely large, with sunken cheeks, the limbs were gnarled, and the eyes glowed like red coals in a bloated furnace. And all this is only in infancy.
1488th year in England - this is the era of the reign of Henry 7th. Agatha gave birth to a daughter in a cave, where she huddled herself. On her birthday, a severe thunderstorm raged in the vicinity. The surroundings are still picturesque: the Nidd River flows not far from the cave, and on the other side of the river, towering over the cliffs, was the ancient Knaresborough Castle. The steep river banks are teeming with springs and mica outlets. It smelled of sulfur that day.
For the next couple of years, a young mother was forced to raise her daughter in a cave with no other place to live. Later, in an attempt to find out who the father of the child was, Agatha was presented before the local magistrate (court), but there was no answer. Instead, the woman skillfully countered the accusations of prostitution and illegitimate birth with the fact that the judge himself had two maids pregnant by himself and raised bastards. Agatha was exiled to a convent in an attempt to cleanse her life and soul from the sin and gossip that followed her. She died in the monastery.
And before these events, Agatha was popularly called "a lazy and idle woman." Apparently these insults came from the fact that the woman refused to work as a laundress or a cook, preferring odd jobs and prostitution - exhausting labor. One of Agatha's acquaintances later said that she had a child from a wandering sorcerer. A charming young man met her on the shore when she was washing clothes. He visited her for a while and Agatha said that he was terrifyingly beautiful, and his touch was cold as ice. But no one except Agatha saw him.
Needless to say that with such an appearance, and rumors that surrounded her and her mother from birth, little Ursula grew up almost completely alone, walking alone in the Yorkshire forest for a long time, playing with herself for a lot of time and spending time in a cave nearby, where she was born.
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According to the descriptions of contemporaries, from an early age she had an extremely ugly "old woman" appearance. A huge hooked nose, bony crooked arms, a hump. Her face was covered with terrible warts. Due to the peculiarities of her appearance, Ursula was forced to dress appropriately, using a cane or staff.
Not far from the cave where Ursula was born was an ancient well. To which, even before her birth, mystical properties were attributed, and people came to drink water from it in order to get something special or find out their fate.
Even before leaving for the monastery, Agatha persuaded to baptize the girl Abbot Beverly. Communication with the Abbot subsequently affected her decision to give the child to be raised in the wrong hands, and herself to go to a monastery.
About two years old, when her adoptive mother left Ursula alone, one of the first stories happened to her. The stepmother, returning, noticed the open doors and windows in the house and decided that she had been robbed. She ran to the neighbors, for help, fearing that the robbers were still in the house, the neighbors confirmed her fears, saying that they had heard terrible screams from the direction of her house, hastily grabbing weapons, they all went to the house together. Bursting into the house, they found an empty cradle, and young Ursula was sitting on a metal pole above the stove, on which pots are usually hung. The girl was naked and laughed merrily at the frightened guests.
It is not known when her prophetic visions began, whether she was looking for her own craft in an attempt to defend herself from the harsh world of gossip and superstition, or whether this craft found her.
In 1512, Ursula married the local carpenter Shipton. Locals accused her of using a love potion, but the marriage was successful. They had no children. And her husband, Toby, was an obedient master, they lived without scandals, and as far as we know, he was proud of her craft. Although, if you fell into the clutches of a witch, maybe you would also be obedient, polite, did not bother with sex and were in every possible way proud of her magical powers.
A few years after his marriage, Tobias Shipton died - leaving all his property to a young widow.
One of her earliest predictions is the story of a young nobleman. He was driving by when he learned that a strange woman lives in the vicinity, who sometimes talks about the future, and some of her prophecies come true. The young lord needed money, and taking the opportunity he came to Ursula to ask if she could predict the date of his father's death, so that he could more accurately negotiate with his creditors. Or somehow contribute to his death, because after the funeral, he will finally be able to pay off debts at the expense of the inheritance. Shipton did not answer him, and he left with nothing.
Immediately after returning from her, the young man fell seriously ill. Then his father went to her, demanding that she heal his son. To which she answered him something like this:
“Those who want to open someone else's death - open theirs, And he will take the land that he was looking for for burial in his grave."
A few days later, the young man died. This story quickly went around all the pubs, condemning the widow Shipton as a witch and the power to punish the wicked in the name of the devil.
They earned money by making drugs and fortune telling. The efficiency and precision with which she practiced the craft gradually contributed to her legend.
Over time, she became famous for her predictions and curses throughout England. One day she publicly sneered at Cardinal Wolsey himself, who wanted to become the archbishop of all England. She said - "Darling, you will see York the way you want it, but your feet will not be in it." Hearing about such predictions addressed to him, the cardinal sent his trusted people to the witch in order to burn her at the stake with threats - to force her to renounce her words and revoke the curse.
Shipton was not impressed by the threats, and she added to the messengers, "That the sidewalks of York will be washed with their blood before their master is hanged." The frightened servants did not dare to do anything against her and fled in fear.
In 1530, the cardinal went to York, being already in its vicinity, he climbed one of the towers to grin at an unfulfilled curse, but going back down he met the envoys of Henry the 8th, who had arrived to try him on charges of high treason. The cardinal was forced to return to London, never reaching York. As a result of the subsequent arrests, three of his envoys were accidentally killed on the street, washing York with their blood.
Throughout her life, Matushka did not love either church or priests and never visited them. Once when someone invited her to visit the Church of the Holy Trinity in York, the witch shouted after - “Before the Ouse Bridge and this Church meet, they will wash each other at night, and then the highest stone of the cathedral will become the lowest stone of the bridge, then I will go To her.
Soon after, the spire of the Church of the Holy Trinity collapsed during a storm, the flood washed away the nearby Ouse Bridge, and the stones of both of them were blown away by the current along the entire coast. The inhabitants of York used them as a foundation to build a new bridge.
Her predictions or curses include even the great fire and the ensuing plague in London. When rumors that the Witch Shipton said that great London would burn in hellish fire reached the nobility, even the royal family was informed. And at the expense of her predictions, a council was assembled, which, in other matters, did not save the city from fire or plague.
Subsequently, many books were published, government investigations were carried out on the activities of this woman. She is prescribed a huge number of predictions, the number and accuracy of which elevate her to the number of people like Nostradamus or Wanga. But this image, like the woman herself, did not become so popular, because first of all, Shipton was called the daughter of the Devil, and her powers were fed by the sources of the dark well.
One way or another, many fortune-tellers began to use the image of Shipton, her figurines and portraits later. Many Old English pubs have been named in her honor, many of which are still in operation. And Ursula herself firmly entered Old English folklore as Mother Shipton. Old English witch.
Ursula Shipton died in 1561, at 73. The church refused to bury her, and therefore the location of the grave remains for certain unknown. Presumably, she was buried near the cave where she spent her childhood and the ancient well, which is still intact.
Author: ScientaeVulgaris