The Cottingley Fairies

In 1917 two cousins, Frances Griffiths (then aged 10) and Elsie Wright (17) brought the little village of Cottingley (West Yorkshire, UK) to national attention when they claimed to have captured faeries on camera. They had two photos - one of Frances with a group of faeries dancing in front of her and the other showed Elsie holding out her hand to a gnome like creature. Their families assumed some kind of trickery, though they weren’t sure how the girls had done so, especially as neither had used a camera before. The two girls swore they really were pictures of the faeries they regularly played with in the glen.
Three years later a writer named Edward Gardener was shown the photographs, and the story went national. It attracted interest and support from a number of people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The photos were examined by experts who could see no signs of forgery, but the cousins were asked to produce more photos as further proof of their claims. They duly obliged, producing a further three images. Again, on examination the photographic experts could see no signs they were fake.
The interest and discussions over the truth behind the photos continued for many years - eventually Frances and Elsie admitted that four of the images had been faked (created by carefully positioning cut out fairy illustrations with hat pins). However, they always maintained the fifth photo was real, and they really had seen faeries in the glen - “Little men, dressed in green, wearing long green stockings, coats of greyish green and matching caps” and in addition, wood elves and fairies.
Genuine or not, the photographs have captured the imagination of people all over the world ever since. In 1997 a film based on the story was made, called ‘Fairy Tale: A True Story’.

Filed under Faerylore |