Prophecies of Robert Nixon, Mother Shipton, and Martha, the GypsyAnonymous
History
Prophecies of Robert Nixon, Mother Shipton, and Martha, the Gypsy
Anonymous
Prophecies
This man’s prophecying was an abomination to the clergyman. He therefore
forbade him, but all to no purpose; for the poor dolt, although he was a
drunkard, and a man of low and vulgar sentiments, believed firmly that it
was a prophetic gift of God, and that he must make it known, in order
that the people might still repent. At length the clergyman gave him
notice that, if he announced one funeral more, he should be deprived of
his place, and expelled from the village. This availed—the gravedigger
was silent from that time forward. Half a year afterward, in the autumn
of 1745, the gravedigger came to the clergyman, and said to him: ‘Sir,
you have forbidden me to announce any more funerals, and I have not done
so since, nor will I do it any more; but I must tell you something that
is particularly remarkable, that you may see that my second sight is
really true. In a few weeks a corpse will be brought up the meadow,
which will be drawn on a sledge by an ox.’ The clergyman seemingly paid
no attention to this, but listened to it with indifference, and replied:
‘Only go about your business, and leave off such superstitious follies.
It is sinful to have anything to do with them.’
Some weeks after a strong body of Austrian troops passed through the
village on their way to the Netherlands. While resting there a day, the
snow fell nearly three feet deep. At the same time, a woman died in
another village of the same parish. The military took away all the
horses out of the country to drag the waggons. Meanwhile the corpse lay
there, no horses came back; the body began to putrify; they were,
therefore, compelled to make a virtue of necessity—to place the corpse
upon a sledge, and harness an ox to it.
In the meantime the clergyman, and the teacher with his scholars,
proceeded to the village to meet the corpse; and, as the funeral came
along the meadow in this array, the gravedigger came up to the clergyman,
pulled him by the gown, pointed with his finger toward the sledge, and
said not a word.
Such was the tale as related by the clergyman. I was well acquainted
with the good man, and he was incapable of telling an untruth, much less
in a matter which contradicted all his principles.
PROVIDENTIAL FOREBODING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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