Dan Snow's History Hit - Mother Shipton: Tudor Prophetess of England's Doom

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Did a Tudor prophetess correctly predict the English Civil War, the Crimean War, the sinking of the Titanic, World War One and the end of days? And what does she have to do with turning teddy bears into stone?Find out as Maddy and Anthony discuss Mother Shipton's life, legend and legacy.Written by Maddy PellingEdited and produced by Freddy Chick. The senior producer is Charlotte Long.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. I'm going to play you an episode of our sibling podcast now, After Dark.

This is our new smash hit podcast that looks into the history of weird stuff, the unexplained, the supernatural stories, fables, and sometimes some conspiracy theories too. In this episode, the two excellent hosts, Maddy and Anthony, look at the remarkable person that we know as Mother Shipton. She was a Tudor prophetess. Now, it's said that she correctly predicted the English Civil War, the Crimean War, the sinking of the Titanic, World War I, and yes, I'm afraid, the end of days. Did she, in fact, do those things? And also you'll discover, what does she have to do with turning teddy bears into stone? It's the question you've all been asking yourselves.

This, friends, is After Dark, the brand new podcast from History Hit. Enjoy. 1488. It's a dark and stormy night in North Yorkshire. The wind is howling and rain drives horizontally across the landscape. In a cave close to the banks of the River Nid, a young girl is taking shelter. She's 15, alone, and in labour. In no time at all, the cries of her newborn ring out in the darkness. This is the story of how Ursula Southell enters the world. Born into poverty to a single mother on the edge of a society that will judge and shun her, she will nevertheless

go on to be one of the most famous and feared women of her age. Accused of witchcraft in collaboration with the devil, she will predict with terrifying accuracy many of the major events of her lifetime. Eventually known as Mother Shipton, the Witch of Yorkshire, her name will pass into legend and haunt the English consciousness for centuries after she is dead. But what do we know about her life? And was she really able to prophesise the future? Hello and welcome to After Dark, the podcast that explores the darker side of history. Today we're serving up a pinch of myth and a dollop of the supernatural with the story of Mother Shipton, an English prophetess who correctly predicted everything from a new water system in York to the English Civil War, the Great Fire of London, and perhaps even the End Times. Born in the 15th century, her myth and her prophecies provide a through line through

some of the most tumultuous centuries in English history. But did she really ever do any of this? Let's get into it. This is a really interesting one for me because this is not somebody I've heard of before. Not in terms of their actual personhood. I think I've probably passed the signs in Yorkshire saying Mother Shipton's Cave and said to myself, right, that sounds like it's interesting and I can go there but I hadn't heard of her and it seems like she is somebody who kind of looms

quite large in English folklore but also history but also kind of there's this legend that seems to be built up around her so like can can you tell me like what's the what's the difference between the woman and the legend if if you know what i mean yeah and you know what it's actually really hard to separate the two and it's something that we're gonna discuss so you're absolutely right to mention mother shipton's cave anyone who has been on holiday to yorkshire or driven through yorkshire to go north or indeed driven through yorkshire go south. Either way, whichever way you're driving, you'll see the signs. Or west or east, you know, if you're in Yorkshire, you're going to see it. So it's on the outskirts of Knaresborough, which is a market town in North Yorkshire. I used to live relatively close to

there. And so Mother Shipton for me is a little bit of an obsession, but she is definitely well known in English folklore. And the way that we know her is as a prophetess and someone who supposedly has prophesied catastrophic events for centuries and centuries beyond her own life. Now, we don't really know a huge amount about her life she is born in the 15th century in 1488 it's really hard to identify her she was illegitimate she was born to a unmarried mother and into a social class that means that she's really hard to find in the archival evidence from that time the earliest source that we have that says anything about her life and who she was as Ursula Southell, because she becomes known as Mother Shipton, and again, we're going to get into this difference and this kind of transformation into

an old wise woman, right? So the earliest source we have for her life is published in 1667, which is... Oh, so we're 200 years, like that's 200 years later, right? Yeah, so it's just over 100 years after she dies. She lives relatively long for the 15th century into the 16th century. But yeah, it's published at least 100 years after her death. And it's by an Irish playwright and a bookseller called Richard Head. And he records some of her prophecies.

Now, her prophecies are written down before that in the 1640s. Again, again, after she's died. But they are kind of separated from Ursula Sutherland, the person. And this becomes this sort of defining issue of her in terms of the historiography around her. But come here, why? Why the delay? Why is there such, because again, I mean, you know me when it comes to these things and it's kind of like, it's adding layers of legend onto history. And I kind of become a little bit suspicious that it's taken almost 200 years or a hundred years after she dies for any account of her prophecies or any account of her life to come out. Do we know anything as to why that might have taken so long?

I think one of the main reasons why she was so compelling to people in the 17th century when people start to really write about her is that she has this extraordinarily long life. And it's a life that falls in a period of British history that is incredibly eventful and I think her perception of these events and her potential involvement in some of them is really key. So she's born, as we say, in 1488 during the reign of Henry VII. Three years earlier, that's all, Richard III is killed at the Battle of Bosworth but she lives through the reign of Henry VII. Three years earlier, that's all, Richard III is killed at the Battle of Bosworth. But she lives through the reigns of Henry VIII, through his admittedly short-lived reign of his son Edward, through Mary, and she survives three years into the queenship of Elizabeth I.

Wow, that's a lot of history. So yeah, she's straddling these really turbulent moments of history as well. And I think that kind of relates to how she's straddling these really turbulent moments of history as well. And I think that kind of relates to how she's perceived. So what are the other details that Richard Head gives us in his account that might be able to root some of this in more kind of robust historical fact? Sure. So we know that, and we know this from Head, so taken with a pinch of salt, that's my caveat. We know this from Head. So taken with a pinch of salt. That's my caveat. We know that her mother is herself an orphan. Her name is Agatha, according to Head. And her last name is given as Southal, but it's also given as Sooth-Tail. And sometimes it's given as Sooth-Tell. Now, this could be to do with the inconsistency of spelling in this period.

That wouldn't be unusual. It's a fairly typical. Exactly, exactly. But I think this, in the iteration of soothe tell, we're getting a little bit of a hint here about maybe Agatha's status in her community, that she is potentially a soothsayer. She has a connection with maybe healing or witchcraft. And this is certainly something that her daughter becomes known for. So it's not a stretch to imagine that Agatha herself has some kind of connection to magical practices of some sort. Now, Ursula's father is not only not around, but Agatha refuses to name him when her daughter Ursula is born. Now, they're clearly not married.

He may already be married. He may be a powerful, high-ranking person in the community they live in around Knaresborough, around the cave where Ursula's born. We just don't know. But because of this, because Agatha refuses, and because she ends up homeless alone in this cave age 15 giving birth or so the story goes she is completely disconnected from the rest of society and it's certainly a compelling start I don't know how true it is but I do think what it gives us is a sense of it's a really good origin I think, for someone who goes on to hold this really special place in the English imagination. The other thing to mention about her, that Head makes a point of noting down, and it's something that absolutely colours all of the portraiture

of her in the centuries that follow her life and death, is that she is strange looking. There is something odd about her appearance. In some accounts, it's simply that she's not very appealing looking. In other accounts, it's that she has some kind of deformity, maybe a disability. It's really unclear. And again, a bit like her name, these facts, they're murky, they shapeshift, clear and again a bit like her name these facts they're murky they shape shift they're really hard to pin down but in the context of her being this this orphan um living and being born in a cave it's another device that makes her feel other it makes her feel outside of of her society and we have agatha and her daughter ursula in this cave outside of this society what kind of brings them to the attention then is this something that happens early on or is it later in her life and

it must I'm imagining it's Ursula that comes to wider attention even from an early stage just to be brought into those kind of history books or legend depending on what where you're viewing it yeah sure so the cave that they live in outside the town is in and of itself an interesting location and it's a location that's known to people nearby. So there's a pool outside of it that the locals think looks like a skull. Again, perfect. On an old scully lake. Oh, come here. But that's something like, is there a lake up there that looks like a skull now? No? Yes. I can't remember from memory and maybe listeners who've been there recently can let us know what the situation is with the skull i so the last time i went there was probably as a child and it was not the skull that really drew my attention it

was the other incredible element of the cave which is that the water running down the sides of it and down the front of it is incredibly minerally rich and it petrifies objects. It turns them to stone or appears to turn them to stone. I know, it's amazing. So at least since the 18th century, possibly earlier, people have been bringing objects, items to hang on the cave opening. And you go there today and there's like, you know, a teddy bear turned to stone. There's a handbag. Oh my God.

Whatever, you know, all these different items. And presumably this was the same in Agatha and Ursula's time. And so the cave itself has a kind of notoriety and by extension, they become notorious for being the occupants of it. So in order for Ursula Sutherland to realise her full potential

as Mother Shipton and become this famous propertess, we need to remove her mother, Agatha, from the story, unfortunately. So Agatha comes to the attention of the Abbot of Beverley. As you do. As you do.

I mean, he's always there. He, looming large, we have no idea who he is. So he supposedly offers Agatha help by sending her to a convent, because of course that's every girl's dream of help in the 15th century. I'm sure she was very grateful. And unfortunately she does, according to Head, she dies there. So little Ursula, who has been living in the cave with her mother this whole time, goes into foster care, basically.

She's taken in by a local family. And that's where things turn a little bit strange. Yes, tell me more, please. Although adopted into a local foster family, it's not long before the child Ursula begins to attract attention. Many see her as strange, not only because of her appearance, but because of the unexplained things happening around her. As a toddler, so the story goes, she's left at home alone, but when her foster mother returns, the front door is wide open, and a terrible sound, like a thousand cats crying, is coming from within. When the woman enters, Ursula is dancing atop the range, miraculously unhurt by the fire.

the range, miraculously unhurt by the fire. Despite growing up something of an outcast, Ursula eventually marries local man Toby Shipton and sets herself up in business as a healer, her familiarity with the flora and fauna of the landscape proving useful. And yet she cannot shake her reputation as magical. One story tells how those mocking her are transformed with antlers, their clothes and hats changed into chamber pots and worse. Another tells of a thief who steals Ursula's neighbour's smock and is compelled by an unknown force to present herself in the marketplace and expose her crime. There are rumours of fortune telling too, and soon men and women will come from far

and wide to have Mother Shipton tell their future. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. So we've got fortune telling as if caves and schools were not enough. We now have fortune telling to add to the bag of tricks. Yeah, we absolutely do. And this is where she starts to cement an early reputation as a fortune teller. So we have from the 1640s onwards, some of the prophecies that she's supposed to have said

in her lifetime. Now, listeners might know her as someone who supposedly predicted the Crimean War, the sinking of the Titanic, the First World War. These are a little bit more provincial. We love a provincial prediction. Yeah. So, okay. What I suggest, Anthony, is if you want to read us the first prophecy, and then I'll tell you how it came to be.

Okay, okay, okay. Oh, what is the English in this? Okay. Water shall come over Ouse Bridge, and a windmill shall be set upon a tower, and an elm tree shall lie at every man's door. Right, that's gobbledygook. Did I say that bridge right?

The Ouse Bridge, yeah? So the Ouse, the River Ouse, is for anyone who knows York well, and I went to university there. So did I, but I never, obviously I never read about the river. Well, that's, wow, really? I mean, it was there, but yeah, no, go on anyway. Oh, God. Okay, so it's the main river that runs through York. So this is a prophecy she's meant

to have said. Several years later, a water system, a water pumping system is put in place in the city of York that brings water from the River Ouse to the doors of every house nearby and it's carried in pipes that are carved from elm. So it's a little bit specific but you know what, it's a prophecy, it comes true. The next one is a little bit more dramatic. I'll read this one for us. So Mother Shipton supposedly says, and these are all York related, which I think shows you to me that has a ring of authenticity that they're all related to the area that she lived in you know they're not these big national prophecies yet yet but bear with us so this one reads before ooze bridge and trinity church meet what is built in

the day shall fall by night, till the highest stone in the church be the lowest stone of the bridge. Do you know, I'm really bad at riddles. Like, even, like, you know when there's like, oh, what's got a foot and also has an ear? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what it is. Well, actually, that's quite easy. What has a foot and also has an ear.

But like, none of this makes any sense. Tell me, tell me what this means. Well, first of all what does have a foot in an ear like a person oh okay i guess did i just make up a riddle wow okay so this one relates to a storm that happens supposedly soon after mothership didn't gives this prophecy so a storm hits york and it damages the church and the bridge over the river ooze and when repairs are being carried out some of the the stone that was originally in the church tower is used to repair the bridge. So they're not very ambitious in some ways, but she begins to gain this reputation as someone who

can foresee the future in a local setting. And things are about to escalate a little bit. So we're into the time of Henry VIII, the dissolution of the monasteries is happening, and famously there's a Yorkshire rebellion against this. Yorkshire has a strong Catholic foothold and people are not happy with what he's doing. And Henry VIII actually, in a letter to the Duke of Norfolk, refers to a witch of York in his letter. Now, that's interesting. Yeah, figure like that and also a culture around York specifically, around North Yorkshire, of witchy happenings, witchy figures, and that that anxiety that people like that exist and that they are in some way a threat to kingly power, you know,

that anxiety has risen all the way up to Henry VIII himself. I think that's very interesting. No, I think it is. And I think it's the fact that he's even, I mean, uttering no, but through letter, he's naming a witch in Yorkshire. Firstly, that she's most likely, not exclusively, but most likely middling or working class. She's probably a woman, but again, not always. But the fact that those people are registering on the King's radar is really, really significant. And to locate it in Yorkshire, where this story and this history is coming from, it certainly grounds, even if some of this, what we're talking about is legend and, you know, probably a lot of it is, but like

there's something there, isn't there? That there's something tantalizingly archivally robust about it yeah and i think the people in the centuries following ursula civil's life definitely pick up on this so in the 1640s onwards lots of prophecies that are printed in books and sold in pamphlets and that kind of thing and circulated are supposedly related to other members of Henry VIII's court. So there's a prediction about Anne Boleyn and there's a prediction about Cardinal Wolseley. So there's this prophecy that's written in rhyming couplets. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about its potential authenticity. Tell us what it means, Maddy. For those of us who are not that familiar with rhyming couplets, tell us what it means. Well, it seems very unlikely that

a working class, well, a woman living in rural poverty in the 15th into the 16th century, I doubt that she is producing prophecies in rhyming couplets. This seems to me to be written by someone later on and someone with possibly a higher level of literacy yeah so i'll read a little bit of this prophecy it's quite interesting in terms of how mother shipton is perceived in the world that she occupies so the prophecy says when the cow doth ride the bull then priest beware thy skull and when the lower shrubs do fall the great trees quickly follow shall the mitered peacock's lofty pride shall to his master be a guide and it goes on and on so anne boleyn

is associated with the bull her family crest has three black bulls heads on it and henry before he's king is i think he's the ear of Richmond at one point in his many titles. And that crest has a cow on it. So when the cow doth ride the bull, the reference there is a conjugal, is a sexual act. Interestingly, it's talking about Anne riding Henry. And there's a sort of inversion there of gender politics and sort of sexual dominance, right? And I think the fact that this is meant to have come from Mother Shipton, there's something kind of irreverent about her supposed tone, even if these words didn't really

come from her. She's perceived as being a troublemaker, as being subversive, as not really respecting the hierarchies of the day. And the prophecy is essentially, it goes on to talk about basically how Henry and Anne get together and they talk about these lower shrubs falling and then these trees being cut down. And supposedly this is a reference to the monasteries being culled. The mited peacock that's mentioned is Cardinal Wolsey. And so there's a sense that Henry's actions in bringing in the Church of England and all of that is disastrous for Britain. And this is where we start to see this shift in the way that Mother Shipton has written about that now she's being attached to stories that are really looking at history with a lot of hindsight. And they're talking about like the national fate of Britain, that these big events are inevitable and that we already know the consequences they're going to have and that she knew them and was predicting them in her own lifetime. So we're

starting to get like that shift into not only sort of fiction, but her as a sort of legendary character. Yeah, she becomes a useful kind of literary device, doesn't she? I mean, legendary character. Yeah, she becomes a useful kind of literary device, doesn't she? I mean, we've talked about this before, but she had these big kind of national prophecies, and then she had more kind of local ones that you're talking about in York, but she also had some personal ones. She was, I believe, able to predict the date of her own death, right? She was indeed. So this is where she sort of, what we know of her obviously becomes very murky. So she supposedly dies in 1561. And again, this is based on mostly 17th century sources. But there's a sense that, I mean, I think what that does in her sort of legend, the telling of her legend is

it's nicely cyclical. It ties everything up with a nice little bow that she is a prophetess and she prophesies her own death. And that's the end of that. And I think what's happening here is she's, yeah, she's moved on into legend now. We don't know where she's buried. We have no record of her gravesite, of the date that she died.

So what that kind of tells me then is that there seems to have been gear change after she died. So what that kind of tells me then is that there seems to have been gear change after she dies. And, you know, we're talking about the origin of some of these documents that relate to her life, as you have said, they come from a later time.

So can you tell us a little bit more about what happens after she dies? This is History's Heroes. People with purpose brave ideas and the courage to stand alone including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers

in the First World War You know he would look at these men and he would say don't worry Sonny you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you Join me Alex von Tunzelman for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. A hundred years on from Ursula Southerl's supposed death, and the words she was meant to have spoken still hold power. words she was meant to have spoken still hold power. In London, a huge fire has swept through the city. Starting first in Pudding Lane before spreading from wooden building to wooden building, it has reduced the capital to a smoking wreckage. Among those to survey the remains is diarist Samuel Pepys, who in October 1666 writes in his diary that Prince Rupert, the nephew of King Charles I, is overheard saying that Shipton's prophecy has at last come true. But did Old Mother Shipton of Yorkshire really predict the great fire of London a century after her own demise? And were the English really still taking her seriously?

I mean, I'm gonna answer no to the first part of your question. The second part of your question is probably a little bit more. But I mean, she is credited with predicting the Civil War as well, right? These bigger kind of national events again. So she ticked everything off. The Great Fire. There's a lot in there that she's predicted, apparently. Yeah, absolutely. So she crops up again and again in popular ballads, in political satire,

in pamphlets, in books of poetry from the 17th century onwards. And more and more, she starts to be attached to these kind of great disasters. So yeah, she's associated with predicting something of the Civil War. Of course, she didn't. She's attached to the Great Fire of London. Daniel Defoe mentions her in 1722 in his work, A Journal of the Plague Year, which is written in the beginning of the 18th century, but it's an account written as a first-hand account set in London in 1665. And it's set during the outbreak of plague in the city. And he mentions Mother Shipton as having predicted that event as well. And of course, it's written decades after Defoe's own experience in that time.

And it's very much kind of fictionalised to a certain extent. She's cropping up again and again, and she's being written into these histories with hindsight in a way that I think is really interesting. And she becomes a sort of a spectre in British history, I guess, in English history. She becomes someone who, she's not really blamed for these catastrophes, but she's sort of present near them, in proximity to them. There's kind of a bit of, not quite, but there's a bit of Britannia about

her as well. Like this kind of national figure who's overseeing all these things. And it's again, it's interesting that a woman is put in that position. And I mean, she's having this kind of posthumous celebrity thrown at her, right? She absolutely does. And it's interesting that you compare her to Britannia because I think in some ways she's the opposite of that, right? She is an inelegant older woman. She's depicted as being how we would maybe identify today as being quite witch-like. She has a sort of hooked nose covered in boils and hunchback and all these specific markers that are sort of legible to us today

as being folkloric and kind of cruel really she also kind of represents you know she comes from sorry it's a massive roll of thunder yes i bet you she predicted that roll of thunder she did if i'd finished her book of predictions i would have known this was coming so you're telling me it's not riveting reading i mean it just it gets more and more ridiculous i think What I find fascinating about her in the centuries afterwards is that she crops up in the 17th century, as we say. The interest in her does not die out. It only gets more and more in the 18th and 19th century.

And you think about the 18th century as a time of enlightenment, a time of scientific rationale, of taxonomies and order and, you know, exploring and working out the world. And where does she fit in that? She's sort of the antidote to that. And she's deliciously othered in that world. And we see portraits of her in this period being printed, circulated. They're really popular portraits and depictions of the cottage she lives in, the cave she's lived in. I actually have a print, an 18th century print, I think it's from the 1720s, 1730s, of the cave with all the petrified objects outside. So she becomes almost like a stock figure, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I have a tea towel with her face on.

No, I don't. But it does sound like she would like she would have merch now. I have a feeling she missed her time because if she was on TikTok now selling predictions, she would have a range of merch and she could be profiting from this herself. But, you know, she missed out on that by, I don't know, 400 years, 500 years. I'm not a mathematician. I can't count. But there is also something in what she brings to there's an acceptance she's bringing to people in later generations where they're saying, well, this was all predicted. You kind of have to accept this. This is all fate. These things are unfolding. Yes, they're big. Yes, we've had the glorious

revolution. We've had the great fire of London. We've had the restoration. Again, we're talking about this tumultuous time where there's this constant turnover and i suppose in a way what what the legend that grows up around shipton is saying is you just have to accept it because it's written in the stars it's meant to be and don't fight against this yeah i think this idea that things are are predestined makes them easier to take in some ways. And there's something almost comforting about her presence, right? That she represents a sort of something deeply English that offers some stability, that she's always there. She crops up, yes, as a spectre, but as someone a little bit reassuring and familiar in all these awful moments and she's associated with with catastrophes right into the

20th century and um one of my famous kind of faux prophecies of hers that starts to circulate in the 19th century and it's it's written uh by this guy called hindley i think who admits later on he's written an entire book of her prophecies that he sells as like you know the discovered authentic versions of her work and then obviously it turns out he's written them all in his own desk and one of these says the world shall come to an end in 1881 and i mean great how convenient you know just in time for henley's book to sell out pre-apocalypse and of course the world doesn't come to an end in 1881 but even in 1981 people were still talking about her prophecy and saying maybe it was wrong maybe it was 1981 maybe the world is going to end now thankfully

it didn't so that there's always people willing i think to buy into the story of her yeah i think i think today she's a very interesting character and she's someone who in some ways gives us a through line through history she's you can plot her course through all these events i think and she's that's really interesting yeah yeah i think she's she's absolutely fascinating and for anyone who hasn't been to her cave in nesborough which is you know still a tourist site site today and has been as i say since at least the 18th century it. It is a special place and it's somewhere I visited as a child and it's always sort of stayed in my mind. There is something, there's an atmosphere there, I think, which is really compelling.

Do you think, and I'm going to let you have the kind of final word on this just before we leave Mothershipton behind, but do you think she actually ever lived there? Do you think a woman like her or a girl like her, given that point in her life, do you think it was ever a home for somebody? I mean, I hope not. In some ways, when we think about trying to get close to who the real Ursula Sutherland was, I think the reality is probably quite tragic. And if there was no one who existed called Ursula Sutherland, there will be a thousand young women like her who are living on the edges of society. And I think in that way, she becomes a sort of mysterious every woman. She's transformed into a figurehead. And in reality, we can't access the real human behind that, if indeed there was one or many. I agree with all of that and I also think it's then equally fascinating to if we were able to and I have a feeling probably the answer is that we can't or else it would have been done but this mention this brief mention of a witch from York that Henry VIII puts in his letter that's that's so tantalizing that that particular witch

that one individual has made enough of an impact across the country at that time to be mentioned by the king. And who knows, maybe it is Ursula. Maybe that is the tie in of that. But yeah, I'm going to leave it up to you, Maddy, to leave us with the kind of final impression of Ursula. So yeah, see us out with some final words on Mother Shipton. Yeah, see us out with some final words on Mother Shipton. It's incredibly difficult to pin down the facts of Ursula Southerl's or Mother Shipton's life. With almost no archival evidence to prove her existence, and with the details of her prophecies confined mainly to popular pamphlets or books written for profit,

it's hard to find a real woman at the centre of all this. And yet, from the stories we have of her, someone rebellious, resistant and even dangerous emerges. A heroine for some in the 16th century, and a devil for others. In many ways, she represents the anxieties of the age, cropping up to point a gnarled finger at political ne'er-do-wells or to expose small-town secrets. As a legend, her rise from ugly, illegitimate child to whistleblower against the king is certainly compelling, and it's one that would continue to fascinate long after Ursula herself, whoever she was, had died.

So there you go. Wherever you are today, if you're listening on the tube or if you've listened to this in your car on the way home, you can take Mother Shipton with you today on your little journey. She can travel throughout different time periods. So why not bring her with you through your day to day? Tell somebody about Mother Shipton today and see what they make of her prophecies.

And her merch is available at AnthonyDelaney.com. Tea towels are on a special deal. No. Thank you so much for joining us. We have a bit of a request for you. So this is something that we, Maddie and I and the producers,

Freddie and Charlotte, have been talking about. We want to hear from you. We want to know about any family histories that you think might interest us that lie on the darker side, any local histories that might need some historical investigation.

If you have any of those dark or unsolved histories in your family or in your local area, send us an email at afterdarkathistoryhit.com. That's afterdarkathistoryhit.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. We will see you next time. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.