#cottingley fairies

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Are British people real

No, they're a hoax perpetrated by two fairy girls in Cottingley.

[morbidology]

The Cottingley Fairies story is one of the most fascinating tales of deception in the 20th century, capturing the imagination of the public and even fooling some of the greatest minds of the time. What began as an innocent prank by two young girls in Yorkshire, England, grew into a phenomenon that blurred the lines between fantasy and reality, challenging people's willingness to believe in the extraordinary.

In the summer of 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 9-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths lived in the village of Cottingley, near Bradford. Like many children, they were enchanted by the idea of fairies, inspired by the lush surroundings of the Cottingley Beck, a small stream near their home. Using Elsie's father's camera, the girls took a series of photographs that appeared to show them interacting with delicate, winged fairies. The first photograph depicted Frances with several small fairies dancing in front of her, while another showed Elsie sitting with a gnome.

The photographs were meant to be a playful trick, a way to amuse themselves and their families. Elsie had drawn the fairies on paper, cut them out, and used hatpins to secure them in the ground before posing with them. To the girls' surprise, the images turned out convincingly lifelike, and their parents, especially Elsie's father, were skeptical but intrigued.

The Cottingley Fairies might have remained a private family joke if not for the involvement of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Conan Doyle was a devout Spiritualist, deeply interested in the supernatural and the possibility of life beyond the physical world. In 1920, when the photographs came to his attention through a mutual friend of the Wright family, he was immediately captivated.

Conan Doyle saw the photographs as possible evidence of the existence of fairies, which aligned with his belief in the spiritual world. He wrote an article for The Strand Magazine, enthusiastically presenting the photos as proof of supernatural beings. The article, published in December 1920, included two of the fairy photographs and generated widespread interest and debate. Many people were fascinated by the idea that fairies might be real, while others remained skeptical, questioning the authenticity of the images.

The public's reaction to the Cottingley Fairies was mixed. Some embraced the photographs as genuine evidence of a hidden world, taking comfort in the idea of magical beings inhabiting the natural environment. Others were more critical, pointing out the suspiciously paper-like appearance of the fairies and the potential for trickery. Despite the skepticism, the fairies captivated the popular imagination, particularly in a post-World War I society that yearned for wonder and escapism.

The controversy over the photographs persisted for decades, with many debates centered on whether the images were authentic or a clever hoax. Despite advances in photographic analysis, the fairies' true nature remained elusive, partly because of the credibility that figures like Conan Doyle lent to the story.

It wasn't until the 1980s, more than 60 years after the photographs were taken, that Elsie and Frances finally admitted the truth. In interviews with The Unexplained magazine and in a book titled The Secret of the Cottingley Fairies, the elderly women confessed that the fairies were indeed cardboard cutouts, inspired by illustrations from a children's book. However, they maintained that they really had seen fairies in Cottingley Beck and claimed that one of the five photographs, the final one, was genuine.

Even with this admission, the allure of the Cottingley Fairies story persisted. The photographs had become iconic, not just as a historical curiosity but as a testament to the power of belief and the human desire for magic in the mundane.

[baggebythesea]

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

"No way to forge photographs" says only author who regularly believes forged photographs

[beekeeperspicnic]

Actual evidence of the existence of tiny, beekeeping detectives and stalwart military men in my garden.

[IMG Black and white photographs of a woman in a garden posing with paper cutouts of Holmes and Watson.

@pedanther Gets the credit for this idea :D

[dandelionjack]

small worlds was a child friendly episode with a happy ending. i stand by what i said. not friendly to normal children but friendly to lonely little girls on the spectrum with overactive imaginations and slightly violent escapist fantasies. jaz’s mum’s fiance deserved the torturous painful death he got, so did the pedo (obviously). the only character that was unfairly targeted by the fae was estelle but hey, at least she was pretty much nothing more than a plot device to make gwen realise just how old jack is, just how many mayflies he’s had to leave behind. jaz is playing with her faerie friends in the cottingley garden now. jack was completely right to let her go.

queer readings of subtext are cool but have you ever done an autistic reading? well i have. this is a narrative of reclaiming the freedom you’ve been denied on the basis of your atypicality. also, jaz and chloe webber from fear her (a maligned one i’ll always stand by) would be best friends. misunderstood creative autistic girls deserve to wield dangerous otherworldly power against their bullies and abusers. forever

(sidenote, the inconsistency is so funny to me. first you get sex gas and bdsm cyberwoman to clarify that this is an ADULT SHOW that NO KIDS SHOULD WATCH and then the very next episode features an eight year old as the protagonist, zero crass humour, nothing 18+ at all apart from the passing mention of a pedophile. even the violence is about as graphic as the average doctor who episode — no blood or gore, only rose petals. strangely enough i prefer it this way)

[theloverstomb]

gaslight gatekeep girlboss

[ammonitetestpatterns]

photograph of elsie wright taken by frances griffiths, 1917.

[stijlw]

i believe what my eyes see, and little frances and elsie and doyle's lantern and slides have convinced me...

reading up a little more on the cottingley fairies. really good stuff. i had always thought that the fairies were cut straight out of a book the girls had but looking at some comparison pictures it's clear they were original drawings done from reference <3

[lasaraconor]

Les Fées de Cottingley. 🧚🏻

[mindrat]

kinda crazy to think these photos fooled so many people when they were taken in 1917

and even afterwards.

I guess that it's easier for people to tell now because we're more naturally skeptical of photographs these days.

[godzilla-reads]

🍄 The Fairy Ring, or Elsie and Frances Fool the World: A True Story by Mary Losure

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

If you don’t know about the Cottingley Fairy Photos, they were a couple photographs taken by two young girls who claimed to have seen fairies. It was a point of serious controversy over several decades as people doubted the “authenticity” of the photos but didn’t know how the “hoax” was done. This is a biographical, narrative story about the two girls- Elsie and Frances- who took the photos and how it impacted their lives.

If I’m being honest, I wasn’t sure if I liked this book until I got to the end. Now, this isn’t really a spoiler, but the fairy photos were done by taking paper cutouts and sticking them in the ground to take the pictures. I knew this before I read the book because my partner showed me the movie “Fairytale: A True Story” (1997), which is the same-ish story.

What made the book good is how well it’s researched. Mary Losure put a lot of effort and facts and research into this book and I enjoyed that a lot. What also made this a good book was that in the end it didn’t matter to Elsie and Frances if the photos were a “hoax”. What mattered is that they truly believed that they saw fairies in the beck and they took the photos so they’d stop being teased. They had no idea it’d become as big as it did. They had no idea that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would see these and make it huge.

The author made it very clear that we were sympathizing with children and how that level of fame and ridicule changed them. So I did think it was a good book, especially if you’re interested in those fairy photos.

[chronivore]

Cottingley Fairies

[lemaldusiecle]

Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, the Cottingley girls, photographed in 1920s.

[lunearch]

this is getting somewhere

[whynotworms]

arthur conan doyle would have loved cryptid podcasts