THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES
by Frances Brody
Dying in the Wool, my 1920s Kate Shackleton
mystery novel, is set in the fictional mill village of Bridgestead, Yorkshire, based
on the real life village of Cottingley. Researching my location, I took a train
to Bingley, and walked to Cottingley. There, in 1917, cousins Elsie Wright, age
16, and Frances Griffiths, age 10, photographed fairies.
I crossed the old stone bridge and walked
by the beck (stream) where the girls once played. Frances Griffiths arrived
with her mother from South Africa in 1917. After the heat of Africa, Cottingley
in spring enchanted Frances. The water murmured its song. She watched
butterflies, dragonflies, and saw fairies. Such sightings were not new. Author
William Riley knew the Yorkshire dales well. He talked to several people who
had spotted pixies in Upper Airedale and Wharfedale.
The girls were scolded for coming home with
wet feet, late for tea. In true the-dog-ate-my-homework style, Frances
explained that they had stayed so long by the beck because they were watching
fairies. They could prove it, too.
Elsie borrowed her father’s Midg
quarter-plate camera. Arthur, a keen amateur photographer with his own dark
room, dismissed the fairy photographs as a prank.
In 1919, Elsie’s mother Polly, believing
the photographs to be genuine, attended the Bradford Theosophical Society
lecture, “Fairy Life”. She showed the photographs to the speaker. The Theosophical
Society then displayed the photographs at their Annual Conference in Harrogate.
Human evolution towards perfectibility was a central tenet of the Society.
According to the editor of Spiritualist Magazine, the photographs showed an
example of life forms which had ‘developed along some separate line of
evolution.’ Among a war-weary and bereaved public, many wanted to believe that
here was a corner of fairyland.
It was too late for Elsie and Frances to admit that Elsie had traced images of fairies from a book and created cut-outs. Their ‘bit of fun’ had fooled too many clever people. They were embarrassed. In the 1980s, the cousins came clean. Elsie said, ‘Two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle – well, we could only keep quiet.’
From the first, there were sceptics. Poet
and essayist Maurice Hewlett wrote in John o’London’s Weekly, ‘It is easier to
believe in faked photographs than in fairies.’
Frances continued to maintain that the last
photograph was genuine. Frances’s daughter shares this view, as does Joe
Cooper, author of “The Case of the Cottingley Fairies.”
Did I catch a glimpse of gossamer wing on
my visit to Cottingley? Sadly, no. But there is a certain way of looking, from
the corner of the eye, while lying very still in long grass, and feeling the
earth’s energy. Maybe next time.
For more about Frances Brody and the Kate Shackleton books, visit www.frances-brody.com
Photographs of Cottingley Town Hall, Beckfoot Bridge and the waterfall courtesy of
Margaret Krupa
A pawn-shop robbery -
It's no rest for the wicked as Kate
Shackleton picks up her second professional sleuthing case. But exposing the
culprit of a pawn-shop robbery turns sinister when her investigation takes her
to Harrogate - and murder is only one step behind ...
A fatal stabbing -
A night at the theatre should have been
just what the doctor ordered, until Kate stumbles across a body in the doorway.
The knife sticking out of its chest definitely suggests a killer in the
theatre's midst.
A ransom demand -
Kate likes nothing better than a mystery -
and nothing better than solving them. So when a ransom note demands £1,000 for
the safe return of the play's leading lady, the refined streets of Harrogate
play host to Kate's skills in piecing together clues - and luring criminals out
of their lairs ...
