Have you read your horoscope recently in the Young Post ? If you did, you are among thousands of readers who regularly turn to this popular page when they pick up a newspaper or magazine. Predicting the future is big business. Most newspapers run a horoscope column and fortune tellers do a steady trade satisfying the curiosity of eager customers.
When it comes to predictions, the master was French astrologer Nostradamus who published his book of prophecies in 1555. He predicted, in vague terms, events that would happen from the 16th century onwards to the end of the world. Many people have taken Nostradamus' misty predictions and linked them to historical events.
Runner-up to Nostradamus in the prophecy game is England's famous prophetess, Mother Shipton. Many of her prophecies, like the predictions of Nostradamus, have come true. But sceptics say that the predictions of Mother Shipton and Nostradamus are shrouded in such vague language that they can mean what people want them to mean.
Ursula Shipton was born one hot summer night in 1488 in a cave near the market town of Knaresborough in North Yorkshire. Her mother was a young unmarried local girl who had fled from the town in disgrace. As the baby came into the world in the dark cave, a great crack of thunder crashed through the silent night and a smell of sulphur filled the still air. And the baby was huge and deformed. Instead of crying like a normal baby, the newly born child laughed and hissed. The women who delivered the baby thought it was a child of the devil.
The child was named Ursula and her young mother managed to look after her until she was two years old. Then Ursula was given into the care of a foster family and her real mother disappeared.
Despite her deformed spine, young Ursula was a bright child. As she grew up, she developed a talent for making potions from plants and herbs and the locals began to turn to her for help when they were worried or ill.