Erika Cheetham

Erika Cheetham (7 July 1939 – 3 May 1998)

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.

"Samarobryn" 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: —meaning something to the tune of "self-operated", i.e. a self-operating machine in space, 100 leagues from the hemisphere (or atmosphere), "living without law [and] exempt from politics", Pondered Cheetham: "Perhaps the remedy for AIDS will be produced in a sterile laboratory circling the Earth?"

"Pau, Nay, Loron" Cheetham cited quatrains 1:60 and 8:1 of Nostradamus' Prophéties as a cryptic reference to Napoleon Bonaparte.

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. Though more esoteric interpretations have pegged this region "more fire than blood" as a future nuclear waste site, 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. An emperor of France shall rise who will be born near Italy His rule cost his empire dear, Napoloron [sic] his name shall be

"Hister"

Prophéties 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. Nonetheless this too is preserved in Stewart's lyrics: