The Fairy Hoax of 1917: How the Cottingley Fairies Fooled the World
Share
A Photograph That Sparked Wonder
In the summer of 1917, in the quiet Yorkshire village of Cottingley, two cousins produced what looked like impossible evidence: photographs of fairies. Their glass plate negatives showed Frances Griffiths, nine, and her cousin Elsie Wright, sixteen, interacting with delicate winged beings by the stream behind their home.
To modern eyes the fairies look suspiciously two-dimensional, but back then they set imaginations on fire.
The World in 1917: Hungry for Magic
Britain was still in the grip of World War I. Families were mourning, and spiritualism was booming. In such a climate, even skeptics were willing to suspend disbelief. As one Theosophical journal put it after the photos were first shown:
“At last we have ocular proof that these tiny forms exist, and that the unseen realms may be nearer than we think.”
Photography itself carried authority. A line often repeated in the newspapers at the time was:
“While the camera may err in clumsy hands, it does not lie.”
In such an atmosphere, two girls with a borrowed camera could ignite a cultural firestorm.
The Five Famous Fairy Photographs
Between 1917 and 1920, Frances and Elsie produced five photographs:
-
Frances and the Fairies (1917): Frances sits by the stream, four winged fairies dancing before her.
-
Elsie and the Gnome (1917): Elsie reaches toward a small gnome with a pointed cap.
-
Frances with the Leaping Fairy (1920): A fairy hovers beside her face, frozen mid-air.
-
Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie (1920): A fairy holds out flowers like an offering.
-
The Sun-Bath Fairies (1920): A group of fairies lounge on the grass.
The fairies’ hairstyles and dresses looked suspiciously like those in Princess Mary’s Gift Book — which is exactly where Elsie later admitted she got her inspiration.
Enter Arthur Conan Doyle
The Cottingley Fairies would have been a passing curiosity if not for one man: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The creator of Sherlock Holmes was also a committed spiritualist. When The Strand Magazine asked him to write about fairies in 1920, he seized on the Cottingley photographs.
In his essay, Doyle wrote:
“The recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth-century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and mystery to life.”
Doyle truly believed the photographs were “entirely genuine.” Ironically, the man who gave the world its most logical detective became one of the fairies’ most famous champions.
The Debate: Believers and Skeptics
Not everyone was convinced. The British Journal of Photography sniffed:
“The fairies are figments of paper, not nature. Their outlines are sharp and flat, unlike the depth we see in real life.”
The Manchester Guardian was more measured, suggesting the images were “either a genuine record of psychic phenomena, or some ingenious piece of fake photography.”
Still, the photos kept circulating. Spiritualist societies reprinted them as evidence of the unseen world, while newspapers sold thousands of copies by promising a glimpse into the supernatural.
The Confession: Paper Cut-Outs and Hatpins
By the late 1970s, both Frances and Elsie were elderly women. In the early 1980s, they finally admitted the truth.
Elsie told reporters:
“It was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun. We cut the fairies out, stuck them on hatpins, and took the photos. We never thought anyone would be fooled.”
Frances, though, clung to a sliver of mystery. In an interview with The Times in 1983, she said:
“I admit four of them were faked. But the fifth photograph is real. There were fairies in that glen.”
Why People Believed
Looking back, the hoax worked because it gave people what they needed: hope, wonder, and a reminder of innocence. It was easier to believe in fairies than to accept the endless grief of war.
As Doyle himself said in defense of the photographs:
“The public has become too hardened in disbelief. These pictures have brought a little sweetness and romance into a hard world.”
Legacy of the Cottingley Fairies
A Cautionary Tale
The photographs remind us how context shapes belief. Even brilliant minds like Doyle’s can be blinded by longing.
Pop Culture
The Cottingley Fairies have inspired plays, novels, and films — most notably FairyTale: A True Story (1997). The images themselves are displayed at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England.
Folklore Meets Media
The case sits at a crossroads: old fairy folklore colliding with new mass media. The photographs gave fairies a second life in the modern age, not as whispered stories in villages, but as global sensations printed in newspapers.
FAQ: The Cottingley Fairies and the 1917 Fairy Hoax
Were the Cottingley Fairies real?
No. The fairies in the 1917 photographs were paper cut-outs, traced from Princess Mary’s Gift Book and attached with hatpins. Frances and Elsie admitted this in the 1980s, though Frances always maintained the final photo was genuine.
Why did Arthur Conan Doyle believe in the fairies?
Doyle was a committed spiritualist who believed in life beyond death. Coming out of World War I, he saw the photos as proof of another realm. In The Strand Magazine he wrote: “There is a glamour and mystery to life, and the recognition of fairies brings it closer to us.”
How many Cottingley Fairy photos were there?
There were five photographs taken between 1917 and 1920: Frances and the Fairies, Elsie and the Gnome, Frances with the Leaping Fairy, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie, and The Sun-Bath Fairies.
When did the Cottingley Fairies hoax get exposed?
By the early 1980s, both Elsie and Frances admitted the photographs were staged. Elsie openly laughed about tracing and cutting out the fairies. Frances, however, insisted that the last photograph — The Sun-Bath Fairies — was authentic.
Why did people believe the photographs at the time?
Several reasons:
-
Grief after WWI made people receptive to mystical proof of another world.
-
Trust in photography (still a young technology) made the images seem reliable.
-
Folklore and fairy stories were still part of everyday culture.
The photos succeeded not because they were clever, but because people wanted them to be true.
Conclusion: Cardboard Fairies, Real Lessons
The Cottingley Fairy hoax of 1917 wasn’t just a prank by two clever girls. It was a reflection of its time: a world wounded by war, grasping at wonder.
Elsie and Frances may have tricked their neighbors — and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — but in doing so they created one of the most enduring legends of the 20th century.
A century later, the lesson endures: belief can be more powerful than evidence.
As Frances insisted until the end of her life:
“There were fairies. You can laugh, but they were there.”