Based on contemporary references to her and countless resources detailing the events of her life, historians believe Mother Shipton was a real woman, born in 1488 to an orphan fifteen-year-old girl named Agatha Soothtale in a cave in North Yorkshire outside of the town Knaresborough. Based on how every contemporary record of her from the time references her appearance, she probably suffered from a hunchback and a large crooked nose, although much else regarding her appearance is conjecture. She made potions, herbal remedies, casted spells, and prophesied of the future.