Ursula Southeil, known popularly as Mother Shipton, is widely regarded as one of England's greatest mystical prophetesses, supposedly predicting the Great Fire of London and the invention of iron ships.

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Ursula Southeil, known popularly as Mother Shipton, is widely regarded as one of England's greatest mystical prophetesses, supposedly predicting the Great Fire of London and the invention of iron ships. According to legend, she was a terrifyingly ugly sixteenth-century witch born in a Yorkshire cave who terrified the local population with her unerringly accurate rhyming visions of the future. The most vital piece of information regarding her mystical prowess is that she probably never existed, and her famous prophecies were completely forged by a seventeenth-century publisher trying to sell cheap pamphlets. It takes a remarkable amount of historical gullibility to build a centuries-long esoteric legacy around a completely fictional swamp witch invented by an opportunistic printer looking to make a quick buck off superstitious peasants