| Erika Cheetham | |
| Birth Date: | 1939 7, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | London, England |
| Death Place: | London, England |
| Other Names: | Erika McMahon-Turner |
| Occupation: | Writer, linguist, medieval scholar |
| Children: | 1 |
| Nationality: | British |
Erika Cheetham (7 July 1939 – 3 May 1998) was an English writer, best known for her controversial interpretations of Nostradamus' writings.
Cheetham was born Erica Christine Elizabeth Turner in London. Her parents enrolled her in a convent school, from which she was expelled for positing the non-existence of God. Later while attending St Anne's College, Oxford, she married James Nicolas Milne Cheetham.[1]
After earning her doctorate (in medieval language) at Oxford she worked as a staff writer for the Daily Mail, a London tabloid. She began translating Les Prophéties de M. Nostradamus in 1963, which culminated in the publication of her first book The Prophecies of Nostradamus: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow in 1965. This was the basis for the 1980 film of the same title.[1]
Prophéties 10:72 is one of Nostradamus' most infamous quatrains:
L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois,
Du ciel viendra vn grand Roy d'effrayeur:
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois,
Avant que Mars regner par bonheur.
Cheetham interpreted Angolmois as a cryptic anagram for "Mongols", predicting the rise (circa mid-1999) of an Antichrist—ostensibly the third such figure (after Napoleon and Hitler)—a tyrant ("king of terror") of Genghis Khan's calibre. However, other scholars have argued that this is merely a variant spelling of Angoumois, a province of western France now known as Charente, and that d'effrayeur was actually supposed to be deffraieur, i.e. one given to appeasement.[2]
The first word of the third line of Prophéties 6:5 has been variously interpreted as a reference to the USS. Sam Rayburn, a ballistic missile submarine, or even to individual SAMs, i.e. surface-to-air missiles:
Si grand Famine par unde pestifere.
Par pluye longue le long du polle arctique:
Samarobryn cent lieux de l'hemisphere,
Vivront sans loy exempt de pollitique.
However, Cheetham dissents again from other Nostradamian scholars—and from herself—by proposing that Nostradamus derived the word samarobryn either:
Cheetham cited quatrains 1:60 and 8:1 of Nostradamus' Prophéties as a cryptic reference to Napoleon Bonaparte.
French: Un Empereur naistra pres d'Italie,
French: Qui à l'Empire sera vendu bien cher,
French: Diront avec quels gens il se ralie
French: Qu'on trouvera moins prince que boucher.
French: PAU, NAY, LORON plus feu qu'a sang sera,
French: Laude nager, fuir grand aux surrez:
French: Les agassas entree refusera,
French: Pampon, Durance les tiendra enferrez.
Whilst the uppercase letters (preserved from Nostradamus' original) may suggest a deeper meaning, sceptics will note the mutual proximity of the Aquitainian villages Pau, Nay, and Oloron (in southwestern France), which form a small triangle not about.[6] [7] Though more esoteric interpretations have pegged this region "more fire than blood" as a future nuclear waste site,[8] Cheetham's observation was that the capitalised letters can be arranged to spell something like "NAYPAULORON", i.e. Napoleon. Singer-songwriter and hist-rock pioneer Al Stewart also favoured this interpretation in his 1974 song "Nostradamus", wherein he deliberately pronounces and spells Bonaparte's name in a similar idiosyncratic manner.[9]
An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy
His rule cost his empire dear, Napoloron
[sic] his name shall beProphéties 2:24:
Bestes farouches de faim fleuves tranner :
Plus part du champ encontre Hister sera,
En caige de fer le grand fera treisner,
Quand rien enfant de Germain observera.
Cheetham interpreted this as a reference to Adolf Hitler, the "child of Germany [who] obeys [no law]". This conclusion disregards Hitler's Austrian heritage and the Latin use of Hister (derived from the Milesian–Greek settlement of Histria in ancient Thrace, and in turn from the Scythian river-god Ίστρος/Istros) to refer to the Lower Danube.[10] Nonetheless this too is preserved in Stewart's lyrics:
One named Hister shall become a captain of Greater Germany
No Law does this man observe and bloody his rise and fall shall be
Prophéties 3:97:
Nouvelle loy terre neufve occuper,
Vers la Syrie, Judée et Palestine:
Le grand empire barbare corruer,
Avant que Phoebus son siecle determine.
This prophecy, according to Cheetham, predicts the establishment of the modern State of Israel.[11]