These fairies we see, let’s take a picture
I have seen the wonderful pictures of the fairies which you and your cousin Frances have taken, and I have not been so interested for a long time
Elsie Wright watched with bated breath in the cramped cupboard, as her father began the development process. Her cousin, six years her junior, was audibly anxious waiting outside the darkroom. “We’ve got them,” the 10-year-old Frances Griffiths insisted, “you’ll see.” The teenage Wright wasn’t wholly confident in her photography skills, expecting little more than a blur to come through the quarter-plate image. Her excitement built, however, as the first dark outlines emerged.
A hobbyist photographer, Arthur Wright had begrudgingly leant his Midg to the two girls. He was concerned they might damage the camera, but hopeful it would finally end the shenanigans for good. He smiled, certain the emerging image had captured the swans that frequented the stream at the bottom of their Cottingley property. But he would have to wait the night to be proven right.
The explanation had come earlier in the day, after their parents complained that they were spending entirely too much time at the stream. They had too often returned to the house with wet feet and clothes, but the frequent visits were not without good reason.
“The first time I ever saw anything was when a willow leaf started shaking violently,” Griffiths described the encounter decades later. “Even though there was no wind, I saw a small man standing on a branch, with the stem of the leaf in his hand, which he seemed to be shaking at something. He was dressed all in green.”
Wright convinced her younger cousin that a photograph would silence her parents’ objections. “Well, these fairies we see,” she suggested simply, “let’s take a picture.”
The elder Wright retrieved the photo in the morning. There were no swans. The developed image found Griffiths seated, smiling slightly. She wore a flower headband in her long, brown hair, as her right hand rested on her neck, propping up her head. Behind her, lush vegetation monopolized the frame, with a few stray plants popping out in front. A trio of winged fairies danced in the foreground, flanking a fourth, wingless figure playing the flute.
Arthur Wright was at first shocked and then annoyed. The girls had a mischievous streak, and his daughter had exhibited a good deal of artistic ambition over the years. She had left school three years prior and briefly attended the nearby Bradford College of Art, before taking a job at Gunstons’ Photographers. She would soon leave and take a job coloring photos for a competitor.
Her father had no time for the image and the four “bits of paper” in the foreground. When his wife Polly left the house with the two girls, he scoured her bedroom, wastebaskets and the outdoor area in the photo for evidence that they had created the fairies themselves. Two months later, however, he let the girls borrow the camera again.
Griffiths took the next series of photos. Nothing of note appeared in most – just her older cousin smiling widely in a hat and white linen summer dress. Only one stood out. Wright is sat on the grass, with a thin row of trees in the background. She smiles broadly, exposing her teeth, as she leans over with her right hand extended to someone. It is, perhaps, the man in green. The gnome stands roughly a foot high, wearing a brimless hat with a feather and a white ruff around his neck. He, too, appears to be dancing.
Arthur Wright was still unmoved. He forbade the pair from borrowing his camera, in a bid the curb their hijinks. Polly, however, was beginning to come around. Theosophy was on its ascendence in England, and she had become a recent convert. An upcoming “Fairly Life” lecture at the Bradford Theosophy Society seemed the perfect opportunity to verify the pictures’ with experts.
Those in attendance were suitably impressed. The images were displayed at the Harrogate Theosophy convention within a few months. It was there that Edward Gardner was first made aware of the images. Over the previous decade, Gardner had risen the theosophy ranks, securing his place as a noted writer, who traveled the world giving lectures.
“The fact that two young girls had not only been able to see fairies,” he wrote of the discovery, “which others had done, but had actually for the first time ever been able to materialize them at a density sufficient for their images to be recorded on a photographic plate, meant that it was possible that the next cycle of evolution was underway.”
To be safe, Gardner contacted Harold Snelling, an expert in photo forging. The theosophist noted, “What Snelling doesn’t know about fake photographs isn’t worth knowing.”
Snelling, too, could not believe what he saw,
These two negatives are entirely genuine, unfaked photographs of single-exposure, open-air work. They show movement in all the fairy figures, and there is no trace whatever of studio work involving card or paper models, dark backgrounds, painted figures, etc. In my opinion, they are both straight, untouched pictures.
Next, Gardner reached out to friend and noted skeptic, Arthur Conan Doyle. There was no doubt in the Sherlock Holmes author’s mind that the images were the real deal. He had coincidentally been in the midst of writing an article on the subject of fairies for Strand Magazine. He fired off a letter to Wright that opened, “I have seen the wonderful pictures of the fairies which you and your cousin Frances have taken, and I have not been so interested for a long time.”
He promised to send her one of his books as proposed a visit to Cottingley to discuss the incredible photos. A more formal photo written to her father asked for permission to run the images along with his article, in exchange for a £5. Arthur Wright declined the payment, stating that – were the photos authentic – they would be spoiled by the money. He did, however, agree to their use.
Conan Doyle sought his own verification, but refused to hear out his friend – and fellow spiritualist – Oliver Lodge, who claimed they were bogus. Camera giant Kodak, too, issued a lukewarm response to the photos the author sent in. The refused to certify the image, citing several issues, including a member of the investigating board who noted, “After all, as fairies couldn’t be true, the photographs must have been faked somehow.”
Impressed by Conan Doyle’s interested, Arthur Wright agreed to once again lend the girls his camera. They insisted on taking the photos in isolation, as the fairies could not be photographed with others presence. Three more fairy photos emerged. Conan Doyle soon sent the theosophist Geoffrey Hodson to Cottingtley to observe the girls.
“I am personally convinced of the bona fides of the two girls who took these photographs,” he wrote Conan Doyle. “I spent some weeks with them and their family and became assured of the genuineness of their clairvoyance of the presence of fairies, exactly like those photographer, in the glen at Cottingley, and of the complete honesty of all parties concerned.” He added that he saw an elf under a tree during his time there.
Excitement around the photos eventually waned, only to reemerge when Wright and Griffiths were in their 80s. After years of avoiding the subject, Griffiths admitted to a reporter that Wright had traced the images out of a book, cut the fairies out and mounted them on hairpins. An innocent childhood prank had taken on a life of its own.
“The photographs were fake,” she confessed, three years before her death. “I admit it at last.”
While they confessed the photos were a hoax, both women died insisting that they had seen the fairies with their own eyes.
Sources:
Fakers, forgers & phoneys : famous scams and scamps by Magnússon, Magnús
The Good People: New Fairylore Essays ed. Peter Narváez