The strikingly ugly Mother Shipton appeared as a stage character in the late 17th century, and by 1712 the marionette performer Martin Powell made her the subject of his play Mother Shipton and the Downfall of Cardinal Wolsey. In 19th century puppet theatre she mainly appeared as a solo turn - a pipe-smoking fortune teller, but also became conflated with the French trick puppet figure La Mère Grigogne, who could produce multiple offspring from beneath her skirts. This wooden head of Mother Shipton has holes for the smoke tubing in the neck, an effect which was presumably worked from below or side stage. There is no remaining indication of how the figure was suspended but Harry Whanslaw who owned this head, originally made by Clowes, illustrated it in the preface to his book Specialised Puppetry.

The real Mother Shipton was the subject of British folklore stories from the mid 17th century. Born Ursula Sontheil in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, in 1488, the daughter of a reputed witch, strange events reportedly happened around her from an early age and she became a prophetess, apparently foretelling among other events the Civil War, the Fire of London, the dissolution of the monasteries, 'carriages without horses' and the Spanish Civil War. Despite her repellent appearance she nevertheless married the York carpenter Tony Shipton in 1512 when she was 24 and set up home in Knaresborough, to which people reportedly came for her prophesies. Samuel Pepys mentions Mother Shipton in his diary; when Prince Rupert was told of the Fire of London his first words were: 'Even now Mother Shipton's prophesy is out.' She died near Skipton in Yorkshire in 1561, an event she foretold.