All tradition agrees with the Chap-book version, that Mother Shipton was born at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire. According to this Chap-book, her father was the devil, and she was born in 1488, in a violent storm of thunder and lightning. "The strange physiognomy of the infant frighted the gossips; its body was long, and very big boned, great goggling, sharp and fiery eyes, and unproportionable nose, full of crooks, turnings and red pimples, which gave such light that needed not a candle to dress her by; as it was likewise observed that as soon as she was born, she fell a grinning and laughing after a jeering manner; and immediately the tempest ceased." This interesting child was christened by the Abbot of Beverley by the name of Ursula, and she took the surname of Sontibles, after her mother, who, when her child was two years old, repented of her evil ways, and retired to the convent of St. Bridget, near Nottingham. At the age of twenty-four, Ursula married Toby Shipton, a carpenter, and it is related they lived comfortably together, but never had any children. The wonders she worked are all jocular, and some rather broad in their humour, but it is by her prophecies that she is more generally known. Many are attributed to her, which she probably never uttered, and those in the Chap-book are mainly local. She prophesied that Cardinal Wolsey should never see York; and "at divers other times when persons of quality came to visit her she delivered these prophecies.

"First Prophecy.

"Before Oose bridge and Trinity Church meet, they shall build by day and it shall fall by night; until they get the uppermost stone of Trinity Church to be the lowest stone of Oose Bridge.

"Explanation.

"This came to pass, for Trinity steeple in York was blown down by a tempest and Oose Bridge broke down by a rapid flood, and what they repaired by day fell down by night, until they laid the highest stone of the steeple as a foundation of the Bridge.

"Second Prophecy.

"A time shall come when a ship will come sailing up the Thames till it is opposite London, and the master of the ship asks the Captain of the ship why he weeps, since he has made so good a voyage; and he shall say, Ah! what a grand city was this? none in all the world comparable to it, and now there is scarce a house left.

"Explanation.

"These words were verified after the dreadful Fire of London in 1666, not one house being left on the Thames side from the Tower to the Temple," etc., etc.

There are more, but these are a fair sample, and two illustrations are also given, showing the then popular idea of a Walpurgisnacht.

Mother Shipton is said to have died in 1561, but her life and prophecies were not published till 1641, in a small quarto tract, "The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the raigne of Henry the eighth. Foretelling the death of Cardinal Wolsey, the lord Percy, and others, as also what should happen in insuing times. London: Printed for Richard Lownds at his shop adjoyning to Ludgate. 1641."