(left) Alice (Frances Griffiths) and Leaping Fairy, Cottingley Beck, West Yorkshire, August 1920. | src SSPL – Getty Images (right) The ‘real’ photograph of fairies and elves, taken by Frances Griffiths. Sprites from the fairy kingdom pose amongst the grasses by Cottingley Beck, Yorkshire, UK, Aug. 1920. | src SSPL-Getty Images
Fairy Offering Flowers to Iris, August 1920. A photograph of Elsie ‘Iris’ Wright taken by Frances ‘Alice’ Griffiths. | src FlickrFairy Offering Flowers to Iris, August 1920. A photograph of Elsie ‘Iris’ Wright taken by Frances ‘Alice’ Griffiths. A fairy stands on a tree branch offering Elsie a small bunch of flowers. After the first two fairy photographs had appeared, ‘experts’ demanded further proof. Edward Gardner – a leading Theosophist fascinated by fairies who had authenticated the earlier photographs – traveled to see the cousins. Gardner gave Elsie and Frances two new cameras, with secretly marked photographic plates to detect any tampering. He asked them to take more fairy photographs – of which this was one. | src SSPL – Getty Images via Flickr
Iris and the gnome, September 1917. Photograph of Elsie Wright with a dancing gnome taken by Frances Griffiths using Elsie’s father quarter-plate camera. | src Dominic Winter Auctioneers via The Guardian and Flickr The images of the Cottingley Fairies were taken in July and September 1917 by 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths, in the village of Cottingley, near Bingley in Yorkshire.A photograph of Elsie ‘Iris’ Wright with a fairy, taken by Frances ‘Alice’ Griffiths. (Sept., 1917) | src SSPL-Getty Images via Flickr
This picture showing Frances Griffiths with four dancing fairies was taken in 1917 by Elsie Wright, 16, in the village of Cottingley, West Yorkshire. The two girls, like so many children then and now, believed in fairies and set out to prove their existence. They staged them with paper cut-outs at the end of Elsie’s garden. | src SSPL – Getty Images via The Sun
Alice and the Fairies, taken by Elsie Wright, shows Frances Griffiths with the fairies, made from coloured paper cutouts and hat pins. July, 1917. | src Dominic Winter Auctioneers via The Guardian and Flickr The images of the Cottingley Fairies were taken between July and September 1917 by 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths, in the village of Cottingley, near Bingley in Yorkshire.
Oberon’s Fairy Kingdom (The Nijinska Ballet). A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Warner Brothers, 1935), directed by William Dieterle and Max Reinhardt. Photographer: Hans Fred Konekamp. Still photographer: Mickey Marigold. | src Cleveland State University