Yearning for Magic
Tiny Tall Tale
In the summer of 1917, cousins Elsie Wright (16) and Frances Griffiths (9) lived in West Yorkshire, close to a small wooded valley near Cottingley Beck, the stream flowing past the foot of their garden. The girls often played in and around the beck, often returning home drenched, with their clothes and shoes dirtied from play. When scolded, young Frances insisted they went there "to see the fairies."
Determined to support her cousin's claim, Elsie borrowed her father Arthur's Midg quarter-plate camera. Arthur, a dedicated amateur photographer with a well-equipped darkroom, developed the plate, revealing the iconic Frances and the Fairy Ring photograph that depicted Frances encircled by four dancing sprites. Despite his suspicion that the girls had somehow manipulated the image, Arthur couldn't imagine how they’d done it. The girls, however, maintained that the photograph was real, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century, known as the Cottingley Fairies.
A Flight of Fantasy
The initial photographs - Frances and the Fairy Ring and Elsie and the Gnome - remained a puzzling family anecdote until, in 1919, Elsie's mother, Polly Wright, showed them to the Theosophical Society in Bradford, an organization interested in the philosophies of mysticism, spiritualism and occultism. The subject of the evening lecture was “fairy life”, and the images captured the attention of the society's president Edward L. Gardner, who gave a series of lectures on the photographs in London in 1920 and published them in The Occult Review. Gardner declared that the images were evidence of a profound metaphysical shift, offering irrefutable proof that humanity was on the cusp of a spiritual awakening.
Henry de Vere Stacpool, a renowned novelist, also lent his support to the legitimacy of the Cottingley Fairies photographs. He stated, “Look at [Frances'] face. Look at [Elsie's] face. There is an extraordinary thing called Truth which has 10 million faces and forms—it is God's currency and the cleverest coiner or forger can't imitate it."
Elementary, my dear
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of Sherlock Holmes and a renowned spiritualist, was instrumental in propelling the Cottingley Fairies to global fame. After discovering the images in The Occult Review, he included them in his article "Fairies Photographed!" for the December 1920 issue of The Strand magazine, stating that if proven real, they would "mark an epoch in human thought." Conan Doyle's endorsement put pressure on the girls to produce more images, resulting in a second set in 1921, including Frances and the Leaping Fairy, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie, and Fairies and their Sun-Bath.
Despite widespread skepticism, Conan Doyle remained convinced of the photographs' authenticity, believing they would "jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life." He later published his book The Coming of the Fairies – The Cottingley Incident in 1922.
Yearning for magic
In our modern era, it's dumbfounding to grasp how so many intelligent people fell for this hoax. However, in the turbulent period of post-WWI Britain, people yearned for a world where magic still existed, offering solace to those who had lost loved ones, like Conan Doyle, whose own son was a victim of the war. The existence of fairies provided comfort to grieving relatives, photographic proof of the afterlife, and of realms beyond our own. As The Sun (USA) reported on the Cottingley events in 1921, “The soul of the fairy is its evanescence. Its charm is the eternal doubt, rose-tinted with the shadow of hope. But the thrill is all in ourselves.”
“They wanted to believe”
In 1983, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths finally confessed that they’d fabricated the Cottingley Fairies photographs. They admitted that the images were created from intricately drawn illustrations, replicated from 1914’s Princess Mary's Gift Book, embellished with wings, and staged using hatpins. Elsie said, "The joke was to last two hours, and it has lasted 70 years."
Speaking to the BBC in 1983, Frances reflected on the hoax, saying, "I never even thought of it being a fraud. It was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun." She expressed her bewilderment at how people believed in the photographs, stating, "I can't understand to this day why people were taken in. They wanted to be taken in." Frances also noted that the experts never asked her the most important questions: "what were the fairies doing, how did they appear, why could only she see them?"
One can only imagine how stressful it might have been for the girls to witness scholars, writers, and spiritualists take their childhood lie and spirit it away to the masses. When confronted with the idea that they had made people look like fools, Frances responded, "People often say to me 'Don't you feel ashamed that you have made all these poor people look like fools? They believed in you.' But I do not, because they wanted to believe." In fact, Frances also believed, maintaining that the fifth and final photograph showed real fairies.
Determined to support her cousin's claim, Elsie borrowed her father Arthur's Midg quarter-plate camera. Arthur, a dedicated amateur photographer with a well-equipped darkroom, developed the plate, revealing the iconic Frances and the Fairy Ring photograph that depicted Frances encircled by four dancing sprites. Despite his suspicion that the girls had somehow manipulated the image, Arthur couldn't imagine how they’d done it. The girls, however, maintained that the photograph was real, setting in motion a series of events that would lead to one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century, known as the Cottingley Fairies.
A Flight of Fantasy
The initial photographs - Frances and the Fairy Ring and Elsie and the Gnome - remained a puzzling family anecdote until, in 1919, Elsie's mother, Polly Wright, showed them to the Theosophical Society in Bradford, an organization interested in the philosophies of mysticism, spiritualism and occultism. The subject of the evening lecture was “fairy life”, and the images captured the attention of the society's president Edward L. Gardner, who gave a series of lectures on the photographs in London in 1920 and published them in The Occult Review. Gardner declared that the images were evidence of a profound metaphysical shift, offering irrefutable proof that humanity was on the cusp of a spiritual awakening.
Henry de Vere Stacpool, a renowned novelist, also lent his support to the legitimacy of the Cottingley Fairies photographs. He stated, “Look at [Frances'] face. Look at [Elsie's] face. There is an extraordinary thing called Truth which has 10 million faces and forms—it is God's currency and the cleverest coiner or forger can't imitate it."
Elementary, my dear
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer of Sherlock Holmes and a renowned spiritualist, was instrumental in propelling the Cottingley Fairies to global fame. After discovering the images in The Occult Review, he included them in his article "Fairies Photographed!" for the December 1920 issue of The Strand magazine, stating that if proven real, they would "mark an epoch in human thought." Conan Doyle's endorsement put pressure on the girls to produce more images, resulting in a second set in 1921, including Frances and the Leaping Fairy, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie, and Fairies and their Sun-Bath.
Despite widespread skepticism, Conan Doyle remained convinced of the photographs' authenticity, believing they would "jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life." He later published his book The Coming of the Fairies – The Cottingley Incident in 1922.
Yearning for magic
In our modern era, it's dumbfounding to grasp how so many intelligent people fell for this hoax. However, in the turbulent period of post-WWI Britain, people yearned for a world where magic still existed, offering solace to those who had lost loved ones, like Conan Doyle, whose own son was a victim of the war. The existence of fairies provided comfort to grieving relatives, photographic proof of the afterlife, and of realms beyond our own. As The Sun (USA) reported on the Cottingley events in 1921, “The soul of the fairy is its evanescence. Its charm is the eternal doubt, rose-tinted with the shadow of hope. But the thrill is all in ourselves.”
“They wanted to believe”
In 1983, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths finally confessed that they’d fabricated the Cottingley Fairies photographs. They admitted that the images were created from intricately drawn illustrations, replicated from 1914’s Princess Mary's Gift Book, embellished with wings, and staged using hatpins. Elsie said, "The joke was to last two hours, and it has lasted 70 years."
Speaking to the BBC in 1983, Frances reflected on the hoax, saying, "I never even thought of it being a fraud. It was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun." She expressed her bewilderment at how people believed in the photographs, stating, "I can't understand to this day why people were taken in. They wanted to be taken in." Frances also noted that the experts never asked her the most important questions: "what were the fairies doing, how did they appear, why could only she see them?"
One can only imagine how stressful it might have been for the girls to witness scholars, writers, and spiritualists take their childhood lie and spirit it away to the masses. When confronted with the idea that they had made people look like fools, Frances responded, "People often say to me 'Don't you feel ashamed that you have made all these poor people look like fools? They believed in you.' But I do not, because they wanted to believe." In fact, Frances also believed, maintaining that the fifth and final photograph showed real fairies.