Prophecies
The most famous claimed edition of Mother Shipton's prophecies foretells many modern events and phenomena. Widely quoted today as if it were the original, it contains over a hundred prophetic rhymed couplets in notably non-16th-century language and includes the now-famous lines:
- The world to an end shall come
- In eighteen hundred and eighty one.
However, this version did not appear in print until 1862, and its true author, one Charles Hindley, subsequently admitted in print that he had invented it. This invented prophecy has appeared over the years with different dates and in (or about) several countries (for example in the late 1970s many news articles about Mother Shipton appeared setting the date at 1981). The 1920s (subsequently much reprinted) booklet The Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil better known as Mother Shipton stated the date as 1991.
Among other well-known lines from Hindley's fake version (often quoted as if they were original) are:
A Carriage without a horse shall go;
Disaster fill the world with woe...
In water iron then shall float,
As easy as a wooden boat.
Read more about this topic: Mother Shipton
Famous quotes containing the word prophecies:
“Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next age.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“With prophecies the commentator is often a more important man than the prophet.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Man has an incurable habit of not fulfilling the prophecies of his fellow men.”
—Alistair Cooke (b. 1908)