Cottingley Fairies: Encyclopedia - Cottingley Fairies

Cottingley Fairies

The Cottingley Fairies refers to a series of five photographs taken by Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, two young cousins living in Cottingley, near Bradford, England.

The first two photos were taken in 1917. They were publicized in 1920 when The Strand (home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories) published a piece by Doyle showing the first two photographs and describing them. Griffiths and Wright were then given 24 photographic plates and took three more photos in August 1920. They blamed constant rainfall, but rainfall was at the lowest point in the year during August. This is now seen as proof that they had to discard several failed attempts. The photos showed the fairies as small humans with period style haircuts, dressed in filmy gowns, and with large wings on their backs. One picture is of a gnome, about 12 inches tall, dressed in a somewhat Elizabethan manner, and also with wings.

The re-touched versions of the pictures that are most commonly used today (and on this page) make the fairies look like paper cutouts, having a flat appearance, with lighting that does not match the rest of the photograph. Even the waterfall in the background appears to be taken at a slower shutter-speed than the fairies, which are sharp and clear. When viewing the original prints, however, the case becomes less clear. Certainly at the time the photos were viewed by many as evidence of fairies, most notably Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famed author of Sherlock Holmes and a promoter of spiritualism after his son's death. Doyle wrote a book called The Coming of the Fairies about the fairy hoax and his belief in their existence.

Harold Snelling, a contemporary expert in fake photography said, "These dancing figures are not made of paper nor any fabric; they are not painted on a photographic background—but what gets me most is that all these figures have moved during the exposure." Doyle too dismissed the idea the photographs could have been faked. It is now considered that he thought the girls too young and too inexperienced to have been able to create such a hoax.

In 1978, it was found the fairies were from the 1915 book Princess Mary's Gift Book by Arthur Shepperson.

The cousins remained evasive about the authenticity of the pictures for most of their lives, at times claiming they were forgeries, and at other times leaving it to the individual to decide. In 1981, in an interview by Joe Cooper for the magazine The Unexplained, the cousins confessed that the photos were fake and they held up cut-outs with tacks. Frances Griffith, however, continued to maintain until her death that they did see fairies but were unable to take pictures of them; and that the final image of the "gnome" was genuine.

Two 1997 movies, Fairy Tale: A True Story, starring Peter O'Toole and Harvey Keitel, and Photographing Fairies with Ben Kingsley were based on this event.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cottingley Fairies", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki