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Cottingley Fairies

gordonrutter said:
The book the illustrations are copied form is Princess Mary’s Gift Book, it also contains a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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Ah yes of course - it was mentioned earlier in the thread and I had forgotten. I hadn't realised that Doyle had contributed to the book, perhaps surprising that he believed in the story, unless he never saw the book. If he had surely he would have recognised the images?
 
PeteS said:
Probably in 1917 people had more to worry about than where the images actually came from. Also the whole thing was likely to have been a nice distraction from the millions of deaths that were occurring at the time. ...
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FWIW, I suspect the stresses of the wartime and immediate postwar home front had a lot to do with the story's proliferation. Those who would challenge the evidence were pre-occupied with other matters, and there were plenty of war-weary folks who would have welcomed any sort of benign escapism or distraction.
 
EnolaGaia said:
FWIW, I suspect the stresses of the wartime and immediate postwar home front had a lot to do with the story's proliferation. Those who would challenge the evidence were pre-occupied with other matters, and there were plenty of war-weary folks who would have welcomed any sort of benign escapism or distraction.
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I even wonder if current events mean there might be another upsurge of interest in the paranormal as there was post WW1?

A lot of dead people and shared trauma often seem to lead to people being desperate to believe in something; anything...
 
GNC said:
That's right, and there's the fairy rings under toadstools as well, that lore must go back to pre-Christian times.
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And lots of stone circles about too from very ancient times could only help reinforce things.
 
feinman said:
And lots of stone circles about too from very ancient times could only help reinforce things.
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I think the theories about stone circles are speculation, because those who made them didn't write stuff down about their motives, and that particular lore was not as enduring in history. But we can imagine faeries were a belief of over a couple of millennia ago and longer, that's fairly safe to say (unless someone can contradict me).
 
GNC said:
we can imagine faeries were a belief of over a couple of millennia ago and longer, that's fairly safe to say (unless someone can contradict me)
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Interesting point. Can we, though? When are the first written references to faeries from, and do they support the notion that the idea had been around for far longer?
 
Unfortunately the Celts and Britons and that lot were not big on writing, but if you take today, when there's a fair amount of belief in the supernatural, and that's after hundreds of years of scientific progress, and translate that to pre-Christian times, you have to think it must have been more prevalent and accepted day to day. We don't know what pagans worshipped really, but we assume it was nature. Faerie folk might have been regarded as part of that.
 
GNC said:
I think the theories about stone circles are speculation, because those who made them didn't write stuff down about their motives, and that particular lore was not as enduring in history. But we can imagine faeries were a belief of over a couple of millennia ago and longer, that's fairly safe to say (unless someone can contradict me).
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Agreed. I don't think the ancient people who built them were thinking about fairies --more probably ancestors or the gods, but later people who had forgotten about the builders and believed in fairies could see them as good spots for them, or associated with them.
 
We can only make guesses about the origins of our fairies. I've heard all kinds of notions; that they're cultural memories of earlier people defeated by iron-using immigrants, the souls of unbaptised pagan people, and of course, that they're the gods of our ancestors, either incorporated into modern beliefs but changed into wilderness spirits or, if you'd prefer, actually there as they've always been, we just don't worship them any more.

Of course, we don't know how fairy beliefs in England or the British Isles connects with similar beliefs elsewhere. We sometimes view fairies as nature spirits, yet it seems clear that by the medieval period we'd adopted much of the Scandinavian idea of elves being in a kind of parallel reality, with towns and palaces, even more splendid than anything in the human world. But there were also Scandinavian beliefs in supernatural beings inhabiting the wilds. How much of what we have left is indigenous to, or at least derived from the cultures of the earliest modern human inhabitants of, the British Isles? My guess is, little. How much can we associate our spirits of the wilderness with those occurring in other cultures? Are they all different interpretations of the same kinds of human experiences?

The way I see it, is that people see things they don't understand in wild places. Ape-men are still reported, after all. And people find their gods in those places near enough to have influence on their lives but which still hold mystery. It wouldn't surprise me if, before the deities living in sky palaces or on mountain tops grew to prominence, when folk still lived with woods and forests all around, they would feel enough disquiet in the landscape around them to call upon those mysterious forces. Perhaps we remember at least a glimmer of that today, albeit much altered, and we remember our earliest steps in explaining a perplexing world in the shape of our current view of wee winged folk, or the human looking elves of northern lands, or satyrs and the like.

All that, and also fairies are real. (I don't wish to anger the fae.)
 
It's a pity that the word Fairy now comes with all kind of connotations, much of which comes from the Victorian era, elfin beings with wings, which of course was taken up by Disney, I remember reading a story from Ireland, a man met someone of normal size who was of the gentry, and asked about his appearance, he said "we can appear however we want to appear" and it's my opinion they do, maybe as UFO's, Big Cats in Dorset (or wherever unlikely) and many other manifestations, the subsequent wild goose chases that often ensue, the false clues (UFO debris that is from the earth) they've been at it for years.

As to what they are, I prefer the parallel dimension theory, and certain places or conditions allow them to intermingle with this dimension
 
pandacracker said:
Can you explain further? Provide a picture? Illustrate through the medium of interpretive dance?

edited to add: Oh, do you mean the nightlight?
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Thought you'd NEVER ask. :D

It's a candle snuffer. Brass and copper with a little plaque which says 'PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE CO'.

The plaque is much too big and ornate really so I thought it must be a twee reproduction, but a quick Google told me it's the real deal.

My pics are too big to upload on my phone but the same model is on t'internet somewhere. Mine is in better condition though.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Interesting point. Can we, though? When are the first written references to faeries from, and do they support the notion that the idea had been around for far longer?
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Not sure about fairies but the Vikings mentioned white elves and dark elves...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dökkálfar_and_Ljósálfar

Snorri Sturlusson is late (medieval) and there’s some Christian influence in there as you find in Anglo Saxon... Beowulf shows every sign of being much older in parts than the version we have probably written down by monks therefore got some Christian add ons that are a bit unfortunate... we can’t know for sure how old those concepts are but certainly older than when recorded.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Interesting point. Can we, though? When are the first written references to faeries from, and do they support the notion that the idea had been around for far longer?
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That's a hard question, because our notion is mainly the Victorian notion, different cultures and times would have called them all kinds of things (The Gentry for example) and they can appear however they want to appear, I would go back tot he Trickster type Gods because they seem to share some similarities
 
Snorri had xtian and definatley classical influences, did he?
 
This 1976 BBC featurette turned up in my Youtube in-tray

Courtesy of the BBC Archive, here is a filmed Nationwide segment, originally on 16mm, well-preserved or restored. Lovely!

Those of us around at the time, remember a live segment in the BBC studio, where both sisters were put to the question, in front of that definitive Nationwide bank of tellies.

It came immediately after this or a week or two later. Anyway, this is much nicer than I ever expected to see it. :)
 
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gordonrutter said:
We had a talk at the Edinburgh Fortean Society once from a chap who addressed this issue.

It's because she is a shape changing alien and she is having difficulty keeping her human form together. Honest he really said it and he really really believed it.

Gordon
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I remember this talk, I think about this guy from time and the thread popping up in "new posts" reminded me of it.

He had a website, which I would occasionally like to share with people because it was something else, but I can't remember what the URL was. I think I figured it out once and archive.org had only captured the title page because it was largely Flash, so it was a lost cause anyway.

It had extensive "evidence", mostly like the elongated photo picture, about the aliens.
 
JamesWhitehead said:
This 1976 BBC featurette turned up in my Youtube in-tray

Courtesy of the BBC Archive, here is a filmed Nationwide segment, originally on 16mm, well-preserved or restored. Lovely!

Those of us around at the time, remember a live segment in the BBC studio, where both sisters were put to the question, in front of that definitive Nationwide bank of tellies.

It came immediately after this or a week or two later. Anyway, this is much nicer than I ever expected to see it. :)
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I saw that at the time. There was another interview in the '80s that's been mentioned.

Just imagine if kids decided to fake fairy photos now. They'd be all-singing, all-dancing deep fakes. :chuckle:
 
Here are some videos on YouTube. Dunno if we've had them already.

The first is a BBC one that can only play on the BBC website.
Second is from the National Science and Media Museum.

Cottingley Fairies - Antiques Roadshow
Antiques Roadshow - Series 31 - Episode 17
The camera, and the original images that captivated the world when the Cottingley fairy photographs were first seen.
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Ghost In The Machine said:
I even wonder if current events mean there might be another upsurge of interest in the paranormal as there was post WW1?

A lot of dead people and shared trauma often seem to lead to people being desperate to believe in something; anything...
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Reading back over this thread, and came to @Ghost's post and it made me wonder.... is there evidence now, with hindsight, of the shared trauma giving rise to new beliefs (apart from all the Covid conspiracy theories)?
 
catseye said:
Reading back over this thread, and came to @Ghost's post and it made me wonder.... is there evidence now, with hindsight, of the shared trauma giving rise to new beliefs (apart from all the Covid conspiracy theories)?
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I don't know whether WW1 and the millions of dead shortly after from Spanish flu caused increased interest in Fortean type subjects. The trauma from the war, flu, and the depression in the 20's and 30's quickly followed by ww2 must have had an effect on people's outlook to life in general. It would be interesting to see any social studies on the subject.
 
I wonder if there's any reality at all to the frequent claim that the trauma of World War One caused a surge in spiritualist beliefs. It's one of those things said so frequently and matter of factly that we probably just all assume someone else has confirmed it. It also sounds like it OUGHT to make sense. But does it?

Surely if there was a boom in medium and spiritualist practitioners - IF there was - that's more likely attributable to a numerical uptake in available customers than some collective psychology. We wouldn't ever claim an increase in trade for funeral directors at that time was down to societal trauma or a shock to the collective psyche.

The usual poster boy for wartime grief leading to a conversion to irrational belief is Arthur Conan Doyle. But no matter how many times it's said about him it doesn't make it true. He was deeply into spiritualism and psychic beliefs for decades before losing his son.
 
I read recently that Doyle was involved in the Boer war (as was Ghandi). He had rather a full life but I wonder whether his war experiences influenced his beliefs. As you say I guess it's not unbelievable that some of the tens of millions of the bereaved might have wanted to contact their dead relatives.
 
PeteS said:
I don't know whether WW1 and the millions of dead shortly after from Spanish flu caused increased interest in Fortean type subjects. The trauma from the war, flu, and the depression in the 20's and 30's quickly followed by ww2 must have had an effect on people's outlook to life in general. It would be interesting to see any social studies on the subject.
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I was talking about @Ghost In The Machine s post about whether the increased death rate during Covid would lead to the same rise in interest in spiritual matters as happened during WW1 and just after.
 
gattino said:
I wonder if there's any reality at all to the frequent claim that the trauma of World War One caused a surge in spiritualist beliefs. It's one of those things said so frequently and matter of factly that we probably just all assume someone else has confirmed it. It also sounds like it OUGHT to make sense. But does it?

Surely if there was a boom in medium and spiritualist practitioners - IF there was - that's more likely attributable to a numerical uptake in available customers than some collective psychology. We wouldn't ever claim an increase in trade for funeral directors at that time was down to societal trauma or a shock to the collective psyche.

The usual poster boy for wartime grief leading to a conversion to irrational belief is Arthur Conan Doyle. But no matter how many times it's said about him it doesn't make it true. He was deeply into spiritualism and psychic beliefs for decades before losing his son.
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I dunno if any studies have been done on this. I know it certainly seems to have been the case in my family, though - women reading the cards (playing cards, apparently), scrying in the fire and crystal balls (according to my dad who knew them all in later life - women who'd lost sons or nephews, as inevitably everybody had). I remember my grandad saying that when he returned home from WW1 he was almost the only young man his age for streets around - he was born in 1899 - and those were densely populated streets. Brother, cousins, future brother-in-law, old friends, schoolmates, colleagues in the family firm - all dead. So you can certainly see how it may have appealed. Tolkien is another example comes to mind. Every single one of his original circle of school friends, died.

And it's not too long after the late Victorian/Edwardian upsurge of interest in spiritualism, various arcane orders in many cities. would be in their 2nd or 3rd decades - and although people like Doyle would have been in or around that scene, as so many literary and arty types were, before WW1, it's not difficult to imagine that other and younger people may have been looking for answers, post War.

It would be interesting to see if there's any hard data, though, as you say.
 
catseye said:
I was talking about @Ghost In The Machine s post about whether the increased death rate during Covid would lead to the same rise in interest in spiritual matters as happened during WW1 and just after.
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Certainly summat we here could keep a weather-eye on?

Although I suspect a lot of that this time - now we're a couple of years on - has been dissipated, as said upthread, into weird conspiracy theories about lizard people, space lasers, politicians drinking babies' blood, "Big Pharma" starting the pandemic to profit from it, etc... and some other bizarre beliefs, this time round - rather than directly into contacting the dead? Last time, it was the charlatan fake mediums. This time, the likes of Icke, Russell Brand, Alex Jones, etc who are turning a profit from a slightly different brand of credulity?
 
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