The Feared Witch Of York | Mother Shipton

it was 1488 in a hot and sticky July and according to Legend a huge thunderstorm shook the skies a 15 year old orphan teenager lay by herself in a cave hidden in the forest outside the Yorkshire town of naresborough she was pregnant and the baby was close to arriving a baby's cry echoed into the night as she finally brought her child into the world unknowing what the future held for them both her child a girl was named Ursula soothtel but in later life the girl would come to be known as mother Shipton The Witch of York wrapped in layers of Truth and Legend the story of mother Shipton is a mysterious one and historians cannot agree if she was a real figure or not her mother the 15 year old orphan was named Agatha soothetel the story surrounding Ursula's conception was that her mother had been visited by the devil in the form of a handsome young man she was brought before a local magistrate who attempted to get the name of the father from her remarking at her immoral Behavior but the story goes that she accused him in turn of impregnating his two household servants the case was dropped and Agatha was dismissed the truth of this is unknown but the story served to highlight the possibility of Ursula's mother herself being a witch of some kind in reality young girls living in poverty would be at much higher risk of becoming pregnant earlier whether through consent or not it's much more probable that Agatha either didn't know the name of the father or that the father was not someone she wanted in her life whatever the truth Agatha was ostracized by the town's people and she found herself living in a cave on the outskirts in knaresborough forest in July 1488 she finally gave birth to her daughter Ursula wild stories about the appearance of the baby would be told in later years that she was born with a hooked nose a crooked back her nose glowed with a luster and was covered in warts and that her eyes bowled from her skull other contemporary reports of her appearance during her lifetime repeat that she had a hooked nose and had some form of spinal deformation so that much is probably true as for the rest it was like the complete storytelling making Ursula's appearance sound so horrifyingly different had two purposes one was to highlight that people in the past believed a hideous parents and a child with direct evidence of a sin that had been committed by the parents it also singled her out as being other of possibly being the Devil's Child and therefore holding great powers and Magic the cave in which they lived by the river nid didn't help with the rumor either with its skull-shaped pool and well known locally for its power to turn any object to Stone in truth the huge concentration of minerals found in the water coated anything near it in layers of rock but no one understood this at the time when Ursula was just two years old it seemed the town's people's hatred finally wore her mother down after ensuring her daughter was placed with a kindly Foster Family Agatha was aided by the Abbott of Beverly and placed in the convent of the Order of Saint Bridget in Nottinghamshire while little is known Universalist subsequent childhood some outrageous Legends survive the first occurred when she was just a toddler a apparently her foster mother left Ursula in her cradle while she went to run some errands but upon her return found her front door wide open and a great noise like a thousand cats in consort greeted her terrified at what might be inside she gathered some neighbors and they entered together there was no obvious reason for the noise but balanced on the bar that held the pot over the fire Stark naked was little Ursula she was cackling merrily and when she was brought down was found to be unharmed maybe a toddler managed to climb up that high without getting hurt the townspeople were convinced this was more evidence of her witchcraft the second incident happened when Ursula was at least a teenager and she had to walk past a group of important members of the parish while running an errand for her mother they hurled insults at her calling her the devil's bastard and hag face something that was reported to have been a regular occurrence for poor Ursula it can only be imagined how difficult Ursula's life was living in a time when any physical difference from the norm was something to be feared and despised the story however goes on to show how she got her revenge she ignored them carrying on her way but one of the chief Yeoman later sitting down to dinner found his rough turned into a toilet seat another one of the members laughed and so found his hat turned into a chamber pot others tried not to laugh but one woman was unable and found herself Breaking Wind so violently that all the people present began howling with laughter and descended into chaos The Innkeeper came racing downstairs when he heard the noise only to find himself stuck in the doorway as a large pair of horns Grew From his head the strange trick soon vanished but the town's people took it as a sign that they should not taunt Ursula while it's very unlikely this ever really happened it does show at least some people must have understood the pain their actions caused and if nothing else fear of what might happen to them was greater than anything else it's even possible Ursula herself or her family spread this story around to protect her from being harassed when Ursula was 24 years old she finally got married to one of the townsfolk a carpenter named Toby Shipton in 1512 due to her appearance the townspeople sadly couldn't believe that she had gained a husband except by bewitching him or that he was after some money Ursula was believed to have but it's unlike the Ursula would have had much money as she made a living from being a herbalist likely learning her art from the various plants and herbs that grew wild in the forest of knaresborough being a herbalist was not without its dangers being seen to heal through secretive knowledge of plants and knowing the various benefits or poisons of each one was usually seen as another form of Witchcraft but in earlier and 16th century societies only a rich few could afford a doctor and if there were no monasteries or Abbeys nearby to help those who were ill the local cunning woman or man was your best bet at getting well again delivering a baby or even easing the pain of death while she would never have made a fortune it would have been a lucrative trade for Ursula and in the poverty-stricken times she lived in it's probable that Toby Shipton would have thought it desirable to have two good wages coming in but hopefully there was more to their relationship although we can never know a few months after her marriage so The Story Goes Ursula was told by a neighbor how a new Smock and Petticoat had been stolen from her house Ursula calmed the woman and told her not to fear she already knew who the thief was and she would retrieve her Smock and Petticoat the next morning the pair went to the market cross in the center of town and waited a while before long a woman appeared marching towards them and wearing the Smock and Petticoat as though compelled to the woman came dancing over to Ursula and her neighbor at the market cross singing I stole my neighbor's smoking code I am a thief and here I show it when she reached the two of them the thief removed the Smock and Petticoat and handed them over before curtsying and leaving stories such as this one show the confused attitudes towards witches herbalists and healers in the medieval period on the one hand Ursula was to be feared as she was able to make things appear on people's heads compel them to do her bidding and understood plants and herbs in a way that many did not which would make people nervous of her but on the other hand she was also as shown here a valuable part of the society in which she lived through her skills real or imagined Ursula was an accepted part of the Town people like Ursula were perhaps considered a necessary evil to the suspicious minds of 16th century people however tragedy would strike just two years later in 1514 Toby Shipton died and those looking to demonize Ursula began to whisper that she had a hand in his death grieving and shunned once more from her Town's Community Ursula made her way back to the cave in which she had been born she continued to make her remedies and potions to cure ailments and began to also make local predictions about the townsfolk word got out and soon mother Shipton as she came to be known was being visited by people in the local area not just to be made well but to gain insightful information about their Futures her predictions became more prominent she prophesized water shall come over ooze bridge and on Windmill shall be set upon a tower and an elm tree shall lie at every man's door ooze Bridge was over the river ooze but that was as much as people could glean and not much could be made out of this prophecy that was until York got a piped water system the water brought across ooze bridge in pipes to a windmill that Drew up the water into the pipes the pipes used were carved from Elm wood and they would eventually come to the door of every house another local prediction was before ooze bridge and Trinity Church meet what is built in the day shall fall in the night till the highest Stone in the church be the lowest Stone of the bridge again little could be made of this until the night of a huge storm both the steeple of Trinity Church and the Ooze Bridge were damaged in the onslaught from the storm when the city's people came to repair the bridge stones from the broken steeple were used for the new foundations of the bridge effectively the two structures had been built in the day and fell in the night and the highest parts of the church from its steeple became the foundation the lowest part for the bridge predictions such as these meant that mother Shipton's name grew more famous nationally and it wasn't long before even royalty had caught wind of her prophetic powers in 1537 as Yorkshire famously rebelled against Henry VII's dissolution of the monasteries and the rejection of Catholicism the king wrote to the Duke of Norfolk about the witch of York this is widely believed to be a reference to Mother Shipton herself and she in turn made prophecies about Henry VII and his court when the cow doth ride the bull then priest beware the skull and when the lower shrubs do fall all the great trees quickly follow shall the mitered peacock's lofty cry shall to his master be a guide on one great Court to pass shall bring what was never done by any King the poor shall grieve to see that day and hooded Feast must fast and pray fate so decreed their overthrow riches brought pride and pride brought woe this rather wordy prediction was later interpreted to be talking about Henry VII's marriage to Anne Berlin the cow and the bull referring to their respective heraldry a marriage which obviously led to death for an or the skull the mighted peacock was Cardinal Thomas Woolsey who at his height was the real power controlling politics from behind the throne and one great Court to pass shall bring what was never done by any King was thought to be the dissolution of the monasteries which brought great wealth for many emerging middle-class Tudors but for the poor Rob them of the institutions that cared for them when ill and fed them when there was no food to eat however mother Shipton also added at the end of her prophecy that she thought the church had it coming it would appear that wallsey was not a fan of being made one of mother Shipton's targets as evidenced by his reaction when she made the prophecy that he might see York but would never enter it in response to this The Story Goes that Woolsey sent three of his men to see her in Disguise she admitted them to her cave knowing them by name before they had even entered once inside the three men were treated very quarterly by mother Shipton as she fed them some ale and food one of them stated that she might not treat them so kindly if she knew cardinal woolsey's true intentions which was to come to York and see her burnt at the stake as a witch mother Shipton just smiled and took the handkerchief covering off her head saying if this Burns so shall I burn before throwing it into her fire to the men's shock it didn't burn at all and was removed by Ursula herself an hour later with not a Scorch Mark present her prediction proved to be right as Woolsey was arrested just shortly before entering York mother Shipton continued throughout her lifetime to be famous as the Yorkshire prophetess living to The Ripe old age of 73 before she died she had of course already predicted the date and time of her death and bidding farewell to friends mother shipped and laid down in her bed and died quietly in 1561. unknown where she was buried as there are no records or graves in the area bearing her name but she left behind her a legacy of a woman who had risen from a young disabled child horrifically thought to be the spawn of the devil to a renowned and respected soothsayer she was part of a distrusted section of society yet managed to Broach its restrictions through her skills Ursula Shipton was possibly a true prophetess but she was at least a clever and Savvy woman who saw how to make a living and give people what they wanted other innocent men and women like herself would find themselves in the centuries ahead held in a dangerous place that allowed them to earn a living but could leave them being hanged burned at the stake or crushed the cave in which she lived became Britain's first tourist attraction people visiting after her death to see the strange pool with its Magic Waters stopping to make a wish in them this continues to this day but even after her death mother Shipton continued to be used as a source for what was to come in the 1640s pamphlets were published claiming to have prophecies from her lifetime that could be applied to the political chasms opening in Britain royalists claimed to have a prediction of the beheading of Charles the first and his son Charles II once more taking the throne for the parliamentarians they were predictions of the Civil War that was to take place a confident voice from the past stating the inevitability of war in England while no certainty can be put on any of the prophecies put into mother Shipton's mouth predictions such as these put out years after her death were most likely fake this was a clever piece of propaganda on both sides a sort of thumbs up from a respected figure of the past that these things were not merely the cause of a society at war with itself but already written in stone waiting to come to pass there was something comforting in handing over responsibility to fate whether Ursula Shipton had ever really said these things was not important she had become branding a logo for certainty in the future this can even be seen several centuries after her death in 1862 when the author Charles hindley published a book of her prophecies this contains several never seen before predictions including one that claimed to tell when the end of the world was coming the world to an end shall come in 1881 Not only was the speech nothing like 16th century prose it was remarkably certain unsurprisingly there were investigations into the prophecy and many others in the same book were found to be fakes Charles Hindi admitted the whole thing publicly chalking it up to being a big old joke in 1873. he must have been relieved when the world did not end in 1881. many other fake prophecies were touted for decades after so supposedly predicting the car iron ships and even mobile phones and the internet add to this it's unknown of Ursula Shipton was even a real person herself there are remarkably few records referring to her in her lifetime and the most significant history of her life was published in 1686 over a century since her death she may have been an amalgamation of the women and sometimes men known as cunning foe who quietly eeked out a living as soothsayers herbalists healers and Prophets while avoiding getting on the wrong side of their neighbors who might report them to the authorities at any moment but even if Mother Shipton wasn't real the legend of her is very real her prophecies were held onto as an affirmation of monumental changes that came to pass people even making some of them up and using her image to give them a stamp of confirmation her story was one of a child ostracized from society Who Rose up to become a respected member of her community mother Shipton lives on as a symbol of those in society that didn't fit and paid the price either in living on the outskirts of society or worse she may have been the witch of York but there was probably little to fear from her except her cunning and Vivid marketing of herself as the most prominent soothsayer in England if you enjoyed this video don't forget 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Channel: History's Forgotten People

Views: 31,835

Keywords: mother shipton, mother shipton halloween, mother shipton witch, the witch of york, the yorkshire prophetess, knaresborough history, yorkshire history, halloween history, witches, witchcraft, witch

Id: AYanbnnHBQU

Length: 21min 8sec (1268 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022