The Pall Mall Gazette of April 14th, 1879, says that the Mid-Somerset people believed Mother Shipton to have prophesied that on Good Friday, 1879, Ham Hill, near Yeovil, would be swallowed up at 12 o'clock by an earthquake, and Yeovil itself visited by a tremendous flood. Some people actually left the locality with their families to avoid the calamity; others made various preparations for it. On the Good Friday large numbers of people flocked to the vicinity of Ham Hill, to see it swallowed up, but were disappointed.
The following is the most largely circulated form of one of other Shipton's reputed prophecies, which of late years has been exercising the public mind. I quote it from p. 450 of Notes and Queries, December 7th, 1872, but since, as well as before then, its circulation has been extensive.
ANCIENT PREDICTION,
"(Entitled by Popular tradition 'Mother Shipton's Prophecy,')
"Published in 1448, republished in 1641.
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