The Case of the Cottingly Fairies

The Case of the Cottingly Fairies: By: Anisha

In 1917 two cousins, Elsie Wright, 16, and Frances Griffiths, 9, produced five famous photographs of fairies. Elsie borrowed her father's camera and went with Frances out to Cottingly Beck, a stream that ran behind the family house. There they took five pictures of themselves with fairies. These photos are currently held at the National Media Museum at Bradford. When the girls returned with the camera, Elsie and her father went into the dark room to develop them. As the second photo with a gnome appeared, Elsie and Frances were banned from using the camera again because her father thought they were just playing with it. Elsie's father thought the pictures were a hoax, until he searched the house and could not find any traces of paper or cutouts that would indicate the fairies were just drawings. After the pictures were publicized, most of Britain believed they were real. However, in 1983, Elsie wrote a letter of confession stating that she drew the fairies and stood them up on hatpins in the glade. That seemed to settle the question of whether the fairies were actually real until Frances claimed that four pictures were fake, but one was real. Even though Elsie and Frances are now dead, the photographs "continue to mystify and fascinate the world".

Christopher Boone believes that these pictures are fake and he proves it. He knows that the paper would move during the exposure because it was very long, proven by the fact that the waterfall in the background of one of the pictures is blurred. Christopher also looked at pictures of fairies in old books and they are wearing tights and dresses and have wings. He researched the story and the interviews with Elsie and Frances, and in one of them, an article in THE UNEXPLAINED, the two of them said Elsie drew the fairies from PRINCESS MARY'S GIFT BOOK, by Arthur Shepperson. From all this Christopher concluded that people sometimes don't want to know the truth, even if it is staring them in the face.

Pictures Below:
(Link: http://www.cottingleyconnect.org.uk/fairies.htm#photos