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THE  COMING 
OF  THE  FAIRIES 


ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 


f^t 


THE  COMING  OF 
THE  FAIRIES 

ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 


MR.   E.   L.   GARDNER 

Member   of   the   Executive    Committee   of   the   Theosophical   Society    (England) 


[Fronfispiece 


THE  COMING  OF 
THE  FAIRIES 


BY 

ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 

Author  of  "The  New  Revelation,"  "The  Vital  Message/ 
"Wanderings  of  a  Spiritualist" 


IlLUSTBATED    FROM 
PHOTOGEAPH8. 


NEW  ^Skr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPTRIOHT,    1921,    1922, 
BT   GEORGE   H.    DORAN   COM  PANT. 


THE  COMING  OP   THE  FAIRIES.    I 
PBINTED   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA. 


PREFACE 

This  book  contains  reproductions  of  the 
famous  Cottingley  photographs,  and  gives 
the  whole  of  the  evidence  in  connection  with 
them.  The  diligent  reader  is  in  almost  as 
good  a  position  as  I  am  to  form  a  judgment 
upon  the  authenticity  of  the  pictures.  This 
narrative  is  not  a  special  plea  for  that  au- 
thenticity, but  is  simply  a  collection  of  facts 
the  inferences  from  which  may  be  accepted 
or  rejected  as  the  reader  may  think  fit. 

I  would  warn  the  critic,  however,  not  to 
be  led  away  by  the  sophistry  that  because 
some  professional  trickster,  apt  at  the  game 
of  deception,  can  produce  a  somewhat  simi- 
lar effect,  therefore  the  originals  were  pro- 
duced in  the  same  way.  There  are  few  real- 
ities which  cannot  be  imitated,  and  the  an- 
cient argument  that  because  conjurers  on 
their  own  prepared  plates  or  stages  can  pro- 
duce certain  results,  therefore  similar  re- 


vi  PREFACE 

suits  obtained  by  untrained  people  under 
natural  conditions  are  also  false,  is  surely 
discounted  by  the  intelligent  public. 

I  would  add  that  this  whole  subject  of  the 
objective  existence  of  a  subhuman  form  of 
life  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  larger  and 
far  more  vital  question  of  spiritualism.  I 
should  be  sorry  if  my  arguments  in  favour 
of  the  latter  should  be  in  any  way  weakened 
by  my  exposition  of  this  very  strange  epi- 
sode, which  has  really  no  bearing  upon  the 
continued  existence  of  the  individual. 

Arthur  Conan  Doyle. 

Crowborough, 
March  1922. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PA0B 

I       HOW    THE    MATTER    AROSE 13 

II      THE       FIRST      PUBLISHED       ACCOUNT,     STRAND 

CHRISTMAS    NUMBER    1920 39 

III  RECEPTION   OF  THE   FIRST   PHOTOGRAPHS    .         .  59 

IV  THE    SECOND   SERIES 93 

V       OBSERVATIONS     OF     A      CLAIRVOYANT     IN      THE 

COTTINGLEY    GLEN,    AUGUST    1921       .         .         .  108 

VI       INDEPENDENT    EVIDENCE    FOR    FAIRIES           .        .  123 

VII       SOME    SUBSEQUENT    CASES 152 

VIII       THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW    OF    FAIRIES        .        .         .  171 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

MR.  E.  L.  GARDNER FroTitispiece 

PAGE 

ELSIE   AND    THE    GNOME 32 

ELSIE    AND    FRANCES 33 

COTTINGLEY    BECK    AND    GLEN 33 

ELSIE   IN    1920,   STANDING   NEAR  WHERE   THE   GNOME 

WAS  TAKEN   IN    1917 48 

FRANCES    IN    1920 48 

FRANCES   AND    THE    FAIRIES 49 

ELSIE   SEATED  ON   THE   BANK   ON   WHICH   THE   FAIRIES 

WERE  DANCING  IN    1917    (PHOTO    1920)        ...  64 

THE   FALL   OF   WATER   JUST  ABOVE   THE   SITE   OF  LAST 

PHOTOGRAPH 64 

FRANCES  AND  THE   LEAPING  FAIRY 65 

FAIRY    OFFERING    POSY    OF    HARE-BELLS   TO    ELSIE        .  80 

FAIRIES   AND    THEIR    SUN-BATH 81 

A   VIEW  OF  THE   BECK   IN    1921 128 

THE    TWO    GIRLS   NEAR   THE    SPOT    WHERE    THE    LEAP- 
ING FAIRY   WAS   TAKEN    IN    1920 129 

THE    PHOTOGRAPH    FROM     CANADA 144 

Iz 


THE  COMING  OF 
THE  FAIRIES 


THE  COMING  OF  THE 
FAIRIES 

CHAPTER  I 

HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

The  series  of  incidents  set  forth  in  this 
little  volume  represent  either  the  most  elab- 
orate and  ingenious  hoax  every  played  upon 
the  public,  or  else  they  constitute  an  event 
in  human  history  which  may  in  the  future 
appear  to  have  been  epoch-making  in  its 
character.  It  is  hard  for  the  mind  to  grasp 
what  the  ultimate  results  may  be  if  we  have 
actually  proved  the  existence  upon  the  sur- 
face of  this  planet  of  a  population  which 
may  be  as  numerous  as  the  human  race, 
which  pursues  its  own  strange  life  in  its  own 
strange  way,  and  which  is  only  separated 
from  ourselves  by  some  difference  of  vibra- 

13 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

tions.  We  see  objects  within  the  limits  which 
make  up  our  colour  spectrum,  with  infinite 
vibrations,  unused  by  us,  on  either  side  of 
them.  If  we  could  conceive  a  race  of  beings 
which  were  constructed  in  material  which 
threw  out  shorter  or  longer  vibrations,  they 
would  be  invisible  unless  we  could  tune  our- 
selves up  or  tone  them  down.  It  is  exactly 
that  power  of  tuning  up  and  adapting  itself 
to  other  vibrations  which  constitutes  a  clair- 
voyant, and  there  is  nothing  scientifically 
impossible,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  in  some  peo- 
ple seeing  that  which  is  invisible  to  others. 
If  the  objects  are  indeed  there,  and  if  the 
inventive  power  of  the  human  brain  is 
turned  upon  the  problem,  it  is  likely  that 
some  sort  of  psychic  spectacles,  inconceiv- 
able to  us  at  the  moment,  will  be  invented, 
and  that  we  shall  all  be  able  to  adapt  our- 
selves to  the  new  conditions.  If  high-ten- 
sion electricity  can  be  converted  by  a  me- 
chanical contrivance  into  a  lower  tension, 
keyed  to  other  uses,  then  it  is  hard  to  see 
why  something  analogous  might  not  occur 
with  the  vibrations  of  ether  and  the  waves 
of  light. 
14 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

This,  however,  is  mere  speculation  and 
leads  me  to  the  fact  that  early  in  May  1920 
I  heard,  in  conversation  with  my  friend  Mr. 
Gow,  the  Editor  of  LigJit,  that  alleged  photo- 
graphs of  fairies  had  been  taken.  He  had 
not  actually  seen  them,  but  he  referred  me 
to  Miss  Scatcherd,  a  lady  for  whose  knowl- 
edge and  judgment  I  had  considerable  re- 
spect. I  got  into  touch  with  her  and  found 
that  she  also  had  not  seen  the  photographs, 
but  she  had  a  friend.  Miss  Gardner, 
who  had  actually  done  so.  On  May  13  Miss 
Scatcherd  wrote  to  me  saying  that  she  was 
getting  on  the  trail,  and  including  an  extract 
from  a  letter  of  Miss  Gardner,  which  ran  as 
follows.  I  am  quoting  actual  documents  in 
this  early  stage,  for  I  think  there  are  many 
who  would  like  a  complete  inside  view  of  all 
that  led  up  to  so  remarkable  an  episode. 
Alluding  to  her  brother  Mr.  Gardner,  she 
says: 

**You  know  that  Edward  is  a  Theosophist, 
has  been  for  years,  and  now  he  is  mostly  en- 
gaged with  lecturing  and  other  work  for 
the  Society — ^and  although  for  years  I  have 

15 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

regarded  him  as  bathed  in  error  and  almost 
past  praying  for,  I  now  find  a  talk  with  him 
an  inspiring  privilege.  I  am  so  very  thank- 
ful that  I  happened  to  be  in  Willesden  when 
his  bereavement  took  place,  for  it  was  so 
wonderful  to  watch  him,  and  to  see  how  mar- 
vellously his  faith  and  beliefs  upheld  and 
comforted  him.  He  will  probably  devote 
more  and  more  of  his  time  and  strength  to 
going  about  the  country  lecturing,  etc. 

**I  wish  you  could  see  a  photo  he  has.  He 
believes  in  fairies,  pixies,  goblins,  etc. — chil- 
dren, in  many  cases,  really  see  them  and  play 
with  them.  He  has  got  into  touch  with  a 
family  in  Bradford  where  the  little  girl, 
Elsie,  and  her  cousin,  Frances,  constantly 
go  into  woods  and  play  with  the  fairies. -^ 
The  father  and  mother  are  sceptical  and 
have  no  sympathy  with  their  nonsense,  as 
they  call  it,  but  an  aunt,  whom  Edward  has 
interviewed,  is  quite  sympathetic  with  the 
girls.  Some  little  time  ago,  Elsie  said  she 
wanted  to  photograph  them,  and  begged  her 
father  to  lend  his  camera.  For  long  he  re- 
fused, but  at  last  she  managed  to  get  the 
loan  of  it  and  one  plate.  Off  she  and  Frances 
16 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

went  into  the  woods  near  a  water-fall. 
Frances  '  'ticed'  them,  as  they  call  it,  and 
Elsie  stood  ready  with  the  camera.  Soon  the 
three  fairies  appeared,  and  one  pixie  danc- 
ing in  Frances'  aura.  Elsie  snapped  and 
hoped  for  the  best.  It  was  a  long  time  be- 
fore the  father  would  develop  the  photo,  but 
at  last  he  did,  and  to  his  utter  amazement 
the  four  sweet  little  figures  came  out  beauti- 
fully ! 

"Edward  got  the  negative  and  took  it  to 
a  specialist  in  photography  who  would  know 
a  fake  at  once.    Sceptical  as  he  was  before 
he  tested  it,  afterwards  he  offered  £100  down 
for  it.    He  pronounced  it  absolutely  genuine 
and   a   perfectly   remarkable   photograph. 
/  Edward  has  it  enlarged  and  hanging  in  his 
'  hall.    He  is  very  interested  in  it  and  as  soon 
as  possible  he  is  going  to  Bradford  to  see 
the  children.    What  do  you  think  of  this? 
/  Edward  says  the  fairies  are  on  the  same 
\  line  of  evolution  as  the  winged  insects,  etc., 
etc.    I  fear  I  cannot  follow  all  his  reason- 
ings, but  I  knew  you  would  be  keenly  inter- 
ested.   I  wish  you  could  see  that  photo  and 

17 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

another  one  of  the  girls  playing  with  the 
quaintest  goblin  imaginable!" 

This  letter  filled  me  with  hopes,  and  I  re- 
newed my  pursuit  of  the  photographs.  I 
learned  that  they  were  two  in  number  and 
that  they  had  been  sent  for  inspection  to 
Miss  Blomfield,  a  friend  of  the  family.  My 
chase  turned,  therefore,  in  that  direction, 
and  in  reply  to  a  letter  of  inquiry  I  received 
the  following  answer: 

The  Myrtles,  Beckenham, 
June  21, 1920. 
Dear  Sir, 

I  am  sending  the  two  fairy  pictures ; 
they  are  interesting,  are  they  not  ? 

I  am  sure  my  cousin  would  be  pleased  for 
you  to  see  them.  But  he  said  (and  wrote  it 
to  me  afterwards)  that  he  did  not  want 
them  to  be  used  in  any  way  at  present.  I 
believe  he  has  plans  in  regard  to  them,  and 
the  pictures  are  being  copyrighted.  I  don't 
think  the  copyright  will  be  his.  He  has  not 
yet  finished  his  investigations.  I  asked  him 
if  I  might  photograph  them  myself  so  as  to 
have  a  few  prints  to  give  to  friends  inter- 
18 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

ested,  but  he  wrote  that  he  would  rather 
nothing  was  done  at  present. 

I  think  my  cousin  is  away  from  home  just 
now.  But  his  name  is  Edward  L.  Gardner, 
and  he  is  President  of  one  of  the  branches 
of  the  Theosophical  Society  (Blavatsky 
Lodge),  and  he  lectures  fairly  often  at  their 
Hall  (Mortimer  Hall,  Mortimer  Square, 
W.).  He  lectured  there  a  few  weeks  ago, 
and  showed  the  fairies  on  the  screen  and 
told  what  he  knew  about  them. 

Yours  sincerely, 

E.  Blomfield. 

This  letter  enclosed  the  two  very  remark- 
able photographs  which  are  reproduced  in 
this  volume,  that  which  depicted  the  dancing'"^, 
goblin,  and  the  other  of  wood  elves  in  a 
ring.  An  explanatory  note  setting  forth 
the  main  points  of  each  is  appended  to  the 
reproductions.  I  was  naturally  delighted 
at  the  wonderful  pictures,  and  wrote  back 
thanking  Miss  Blomfield  for  her  courtesy, 
and  suggesting  that  an  inquiry  should  be  set 
on  foot  which  would  satisfy  me  as  to  the 
genuine  nature  of  the  photographs.    If  this 

19 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

were  clearly  established  I  hoped  that  I  might 
he  privileged  to  help  Mr.  Gardner  in  giving 
publicity  to  the  discovery.  In  reply  I  had 
the  following  letter : 

The  Myrtles,  Beckenliam, 
June  23, 1920. 
Dear  Sm  Arthur, 

I  am  so  glad  you  like  the  fairies !  I 
should  be  only  too  glad  to  help  in  any  way  if 
I  could,  but  there  is  so  little  I  can  do.  Had 
the  photographs  been  mine  (I  mean  the  neg- 
atives) ,  I  should  have  been  most  pleased  that 
anything  so  lovely  in  the  way  of  information 
should  have  been  introduced  to  the  public 
under  such  auspices.  But  it  would,  as  things 
are,  be  necessary  to  ask  my  cousin.  I  be- 
lieve he  wants  people  to  know,  but,  as  I 
wrote  before,  I  do  not  know  his  plans,  and 
I'm  not  sure  if  he  is  ready. 

It  has  occurred  to  me  since  writing  to  you 
that  it  would  have  been  better  had  I  given 
you  his  sister's  address.  She  is  a  most  sen- 
sible and  practical  person,  much  engaged 
in  social  work,  with  which  her  sympathetic 
nature  and  general  efficiency  make  her  very 
successful. 
20 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

She  believes  the  fairy  photographs  to  be 
quite  genuine.  Edward  is  a  clever  man — 
and  a  good  one.  His  evidence  on  any  of  the 
affairs  of  life  would,  I  am  sure,  be  consid- 
ered most  reliable  by  all  who  knew  him,  both 
for  veracity  and  sound  judgment.  I  hope 
these  details  will  not  bore  you,  but  I  thought 
perhaps  some  knowledge  of  the  people  who, 
so  to  say,  ''discovered'^  the  photographs 
would  help  in  taking  you  one  step  nearer  the 
source.  I  do  not  see  any  opening  for  fraud 
or  hoax,  though  at  first  when  I  saw  the  prints 
I  thought  there  must  be  some  other  expla- 
nation than  the  simple  one  that  they  were 
what  they  seemed.  They  appeared  too  good 
to  be  true!  But  every  little  detail  I  have 
since  heard  has  added  to  my  conviction  that 
they  are  genuine ;  though  I  have  only  what 
Edward  tells  me  to  go  upon.  He  is  hoping 
to  obtain  more  from  the  same  girls. 

Yours  sincerely, 

E.  Blomfield. 

At  about  the  same  time  I  received  a  letter 
from  another  lady  who  had  some  knowledge 
of  the  matter.     It  ran  thus: 

21 


I 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

29  Croftdown  Road,  Highgate  Road,  N.W., 
Deak  Sir  Arthur,  *^^^^^  ^4,  1920. 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  in- 
terested in  the  fairies.  If  they  were  really 
taken,  as  there  seems  good  reason  to 
believe,  the  event  is  no  less  than  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  world.  It  may  not  be 
out  of  place  to  mention  that  when  I  ex- 
amined them  with  a  magnifying  glass  I 
noticed,  as  an  artist,  that  the  hands  do 
not  appear  to  be  quite  the  same  as  ours. 
Though  the  little  figures  look  otherwise  so 
human,  the  hands  seemed  to  me  something 
like  this.  (There  followed  a  sketch  of  a  sort 
of  fin.)  The  beard  in  the  little  gnome  seems 
to  me  to  be  some  sort  of  insect-like  appen- 
dage, though  it  would,  no  doubt,  be  called  a 
beard  by  a  clairvoyant  seeing  him.  Also  it 
occurs  to  me  that  the  whiteness  of  the  fairies 
may  be  due  to  their  lack  of  shadow,  which 
may  also  explain  their  somewhat  artificial- 
Jooking  flatness.         yours  sincerely. 

May  Bowley. 

I  was  now  in  a  stronger  position,  since  I 
had   actually   seen   the   photographs   and 
22 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

learned  that  Mr.  Gardner  was  a  solid  person 
with  a  reputation  for  sanity  and  character. 
I  therefore  wrote  to  him  stating  the  links 
by  which  I  had  reached  him,  and  saying  how 
interested  I  was  in  the  whole  matter,  and 
how  essential  it  seemed  that  the  facts  should 
be  given  to  the  public,  so  that  free  investiga- 
tion might  be  possible  before  it  was  too  late. 
To  this  letter  I  had  the  following  reply : 

5  Craven  Road,  Marlesden,  A^.TT.IO. 
Deae  Sir,  ^^^^  25,  1920. 

Your  interesting  letter  of  the  22nd 
has  just  reached  me,  and  very  willingly  I 

will  assist  you  in  any  way  that  may  be 
possible. 

With  regard  to  the  photographs,  the  story 
is  rather  a  long  one  and  I  have  only  gath- 
ered it  by  going  very  carefully.  The  chil- 
dren who  were  concerned  are  very  shy  and 
reserved  indeed.  .  .  .  They  are  of  a  me- 
chanic's family  of  Yorkshire,  and  the  chil- 
dren are  said  to  have  played  with  fairies 
and  elves  in  the  woods  near  their  village 
since  babyhood.  I  will  not  attempt  to  nar- 
rate the  story  here,  however — ^perhaps  we 

23 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

may  meet  for  that — but  when  I  at  length  ob- 
tained a  view  of  the  rather  poor  prints  it  so 
impressed  me  I  begged  for  the  actual  nega- 
tives. These  I  submitted  to  two  first-class 
photographic  experts,  one  in  London  and 
one  in  Leeds.  The  first,  who  was  unfamiliar 
with  such  matters,  declared  the  plates  to  be 
perfectly  genuine  and  unf aked,  but  inexpli- 
cable !  The  second,  who  did  know  something 
of  the  subject  and  had  been  instrumental 
in  exposing  several  ''psychic"  fakes,  was 
also  entirely  satisfied.  Hence  I  proceeded. 
I  am  hopeful  of  getting  more  photographs, 
but  the  immediate  difficulty  is  to  arrange  for 
the  two  girls  to  be  together.  They  are  16  or 
17  years  old  and  beginning  to  work  and  are 
separated  by  a  few  miles.  It  may  be  we  can 
manage  it  and  thus  secure  photographs  of 
the  other  varieties  besides  those  obtained. 

I  These  nature  spirits  are  of  the  non-individu- 
alized order  and  I  should  greatly  like  to  se- 

■^  cure  some  of  the  higher.    But  two  children 

such  as  these  are,  are  rare,  and  I  fear  now 

that  we  are  late  because  almost  certainly 

the  inevitable  will  shortly  happen,  one  of 

24 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

them  will  *'fall  in  love"  and  then — ^hey 
presto ! ! 

By  the  way,  I  am  anxious  to  avoid  the 
money  consideration.  I  may  not  succeed, 
but  would  far  rather  not  introduce  it.  We 
are  out  for  Truth,  and  nothing  soils  the  way 
so  quickly.  So  far  as  I  am  concerned  you 
shall  have  everything  I  can  properly  give 

you. 

Sincerely  yours, 
(Sgd.)  Edw.  L.  Gardner. 

This  letter  led  to  my  going  to  London  and 
seeing  Mr.  Gardner,  whom  I  found  to  be 
quiet,  well-balanced,  and  reserved — ^not  in 
the  least  of  a  wild  or  visionary  type.  He 
showed  me  beautiful  enlargements  of  these 
two  wonderful  pictures,  and  he  gave  me 
much  information  which  is  embodied  in  my 
subsequent  account.  Neither  he  nor  I  had 
actually  seen  the  girls,  and  it  was  arranged 
that  he  should  handle  the  personal  side  of 
the  matter,  while  I  should  examine  the  re- 
sults and  throw  them  into  literary  shape. 
It  was  arranged  between  us  that  he  should 
visit  the  village  as  soon  as  convenient,  and 

25 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

make  the  acquaintance  of  everyone  con- 
cerned. In  the  meantime,  I  showed  the  pos- 
itives, and  sometimes  the  negatives,  to  sev- 
eral friends  whose  opinion  upon  psychic 
matters  I  respected. 

Of  these  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  holds  a  premier 
place.  I  can  still  see  his  astonished  and  in- 
terested face  as  he  gazed  at  the  pictures, 
which  I  placed  before  him  in  the  hall  of  the 
Athena3um  Club.  With  his  usual  caution  he 
refused  to  accept  them  at  their  face  value, 
and  suggested  the  theory  that  the  Califor- 
nian  Classical  dancers  had  been  taken  and 
their  picture  superimposed  upon  a  rural 
British  background.  I  argued  that  we  had 
certainly  traced  the  pictures  to  two  children 
of  the  artisan  class,  and  that  such  photo- 
graphic tricks  would  be  entirely  beyond 
them,  but  I  failed  to  convince  him,  nor  am 
I  sure  that  even  now  he  is  whole-hearted  in 
the  matter. 

My  most  earnest  critics  came  from  among 
the  spiritualists,  to  whom  a  new  order  of 
being  as  remote  from  spirits  as  they  are 
from  human  beings  was  an  unfamiliar  idea, 
and  who  feared,  not  unnaturally,  that  their 
26 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

intrusion  would  complicate  that  spiritual 
controversy  which  is  vital  to  so  many  of  us. 
One  of  these  was  a  gentleman  whom  I  will 
call  Mr.  Lancaster,  who,  by  a  not  unusual 
paradox,  combined  considerable  psychic 
powers,  including  both  clairvoyance  and 
clairaudience,  with  great  proficiency  in  the 
practice  of  his  very  prosaic  profession.  He 
had  claimed  that  he  had  frequently  seen 
these  little  people  with  his  own  eyes,  and  I, 
therefore,  attached  importance  to  his  opin- 
ion. This  gentleman  had  a  spirit  guide  (I 
have  no  objection  to  the  smile  of  the  sceptic) , 
and  to  him  he  referred  the  question.  The 
answer  showed  both  the  strength  and  the 
weakness  of  such  psychic  inquiries.  Writ- 
ing to  me  in  July  1920,  he  said : 

^'Be  Pilot ograplis :  The  more  I  think  of  it 
the  less  I  like  it  (I  mean  the  one  with  the 
Parisian-coiffed  fairies).  My  own  guide 
says  it  was  taken  by  a  fair  man,  short,  with 
his  hair  brushed  back ;  he  has  a  studio  with  a 
lot  of  cameras,  some  of  which  are  *  turned  by 
a  handle.  ^  He  did  not  make  it  to  sell  Spir- 
itualists a  ^pup,'  but  did  it  to  please  the 

27 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

little  girl  in  the  picture  who  wrote  fairy 
stories  wMch  he  illustrated  in  this  fashion. 
He  is  not  a  Spiritualist,  but  would  laugh 
very  much  if  anyone  was  taken  in  by  it.  He 
does  not  live  near  where  we  were,  and  the 
place  is  all  different,  i.e.  the  houses,  instead 
of  being  in  straight  lines,  are  dropped  about 
all  over  the  place.  Apparently  he  was  not 
English.  I  should  think  it  was  either  Den- 
mark or  Los  Angeles  by  the  description, 
which  I  give  you  for  what  it  is  worth.    . 

*'I  should  very  much  like  the  lens  which 
would  take  persons  in  rapid  motion  with  the 
clarity  of  the  photo  in  question,  it  must 
work  at  F  4-5  and  cost  fifty  guineas  if  a 
penny,  and  not  the  sort  of  lens  one  would 
imagine  the  children  in  an  artisan's  house- 
hold would  possess  in  a  hand  camera.  And 
yet  with  the  speed  with  which  it  was  taken 
the  waterfall  in  the  background  is  blurred 
sufficiently  to  justify  a  one  second's  expo- 
sure at  least.  What  a  doubting  Thomas !  I 
was  told  the  other  day  that,  in  the  unlikely 
event  of  my  ever  reaching  heaven,  I  should 
(a)  Insist  on  starting  a  card  file  index  of 
the  angels,  and  (h)  Starting  a  rifle  range  to 
28 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

guard  against  the  possibility  of  invasion 
from  Hell.  This  being  my  unfortunate  rep- 
utation at  the  hands  of  the  people  who  claim 
to  know  me  must  discount  my  criticisms  as 
carping — to  a  certain  extent,  at  all  events. ' ' 

These  psychic  imxDressions  and  messages 
are  often  as  from  one  who  sees  in  a  glass 
darkly  and  contain  a  curious  mixture  of 
truth  and  error.  Upon  my  submitting  this 
message  to  Mr.  Gardner  he  was  able  to  as- 
sure me  that  the  description  was,  on  the 
whole,  a  very  accurate  one  of  Mr.  Snelling 
and  his  surroundings,  the  gentleman  who 
had  actually  handled  the  negatives,  subjected 
them  to  various  tests  and  made  enlarged 
positives.  It  was,  therefore,  this  interme- 
diate incident,  and  not  the  original  inception 
of  the  affair,  which  had  impressed  itself 
upon  Mr.  Lancaster's  guide.  All  this  is,  of 
course,  quite  non- evidential  to  the  ordinary 
reader,  but  I  am  laying  all  the  dociunents 
upon  the  table. 

Mr.  Lancaster's  opinion  had  so  much 
weight  with  us,  and  we  were  so  impressed 
by  the  necessity  of  sparing  no  possible  jjains 

29 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

to  get  at  truth,  that  we  submitted  the  plates 
to  fresh  examination,  as  detailed  in  the  fol- 
lowing letter : 

5  Craven  Road,  Harlesden,  N.W.IO, 

-r.        c      A  J^^y  12,  1920. 

Dear  Sir  Arthur, 

Just  a  line  to  report  progress  and  ac- 
knowledge your  kind  letters  and  enclosure 
from  Kodak's. 

A  week  back,  after  your  reference  to 
Mr.  Lancaster's  opinion,  I  thought  I  would 
get  a  more  careful  examination  of  the 
negatives  made  than  before,  though  that 
was  searching  enough.  So  I  went  over  to 
Mr.  Snelling's  at  Harrow  and  had  a  long 
interview  with  him,  again  impressing  him 
with  the  importance  of  being  utterly  certain. 
I  told  you,  I  think,  that  this  Mr.  Snelling 
has  had  a  varied  and  expert  connection  of 
over  thirty  years  with  the  Autotyi3e  Com- 
pany and  lUingworth's  large  photographic 
factory  and  has  himself  turned  out  some 
beautiful  work  in  natural  and  artificial  stu- 
dio studies.  He  recently  started  for  him- 
self at  Wealdstone  (Harrow)  and  is  doing 
well. 
30 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

Mr.  Snelling's  report  on  the  two  negatives 
is  positive  and  most  decisive.  He  says  he  is 
perfectly  certain  of  two  things  connected 
with  these  photos,  namely: 

1.  One  exposure  only; 

2.  All  the  figures  of  the  fairies  moved  dur- 
ing exposure,  which  was  *' instantaneous." 

As  I  put  all  sorts  of  pressing  questions  to 
him,  relating  to  paper  or  cardboard  figures, 
and  backgrounds  and  paintings,  and  all  the 
artifices  of  the  modern  studio,  he  proceeded 
to  demonstrate  by  showing  me  other  nega- 
tives and  prints  that  certainly  supported 
his  view.  He  added  that  anyone  of  consid- 
erable experience  could  detect  the  dark  back- 
ground and  double  exposure  in  the  negative 
at  once.  Movement  was  as  easy,  as  he 
pointed  out  in  a  crowd  of  aeroplane  photos 
he  had  by  him.  I  do  not  pretend  to  follow 
all  his  points,  but  I  am  bound  to  say  he 
thoroughly  convinced  me  of  the  above  two, 
which  seem  to  me  to  dispose  of  all  the  ob- 
jections hitherto  advanced  when  they  are 
taken  together!    Mr.  S.  is  willing  to  make 

31 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

any  declaration  embodying  the  above  and 
stakes  his  reputation  unhesitatingly  on 
their  truth. 

I  am  away  from  London  from  Wednes- 
day next  till  the  28th  when  I  go  on  to  Bing- 
ley  for  one  or  two  days'  investigation  on  the 
spot.  I  propose  that  you  have  the  two  nega- 
tives, which  are  carefully  packed  and  can 
be  posted  safely,  for  this  fortnight  or  so. 
If  you  would  rather  not  handle  them  I  will 
send  them  to  Mr.  West  of  Kodak's,  or  have 
them  taken  to  him  for  his  opinion,  for  I 
think,  as  you  say,  it  would  be  worth  having, 
if  he  has  had  direct  and  extensive  practical 
experience. 

I  am  very  anxious  now  to  see  this  right 
through,  as,  though  I  felt  pretty  sure  before, 
I  am  more  than  ever  satisfied  now  after  that 
interview  the  other  day. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Edw.  L.  Gardner. 

After  receiving  this  message  and  getting 
possession  of  the  negatives  I  took  them  my- 
self to  the  Kodak  Company's  Offices  in 
32 


r.. 


KI.SIK    AM)    TIIK    (;.\nMK 


Photograph  taken  by  Frances.  Fairly  bright  flay  in  September,  1017. 
The  "Midg"  camera.  Distance.  S  ft.  Time,  1/aOth  sec.  Tlie  ori.ginal 
negative  has  been  tested,  enlarged,  and  analysed  in  the  same  exhaustive 
manner  as  A.  This  plate  was  l>adly  under-exposed.  Elsie  was  playin.g 
witli    tlie    gnome    and    beckoning    it    to    come   on    to    lier   knee. 


"    52 


5    o 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

Kingsway,  where  I  saw  Mr.  West  and  an- 
other expert  of  the  Company.  They  ex- 
amined the  plates  carefully,  and  neither  of 
them  could  find  any  evidence  of  superposi- 
tion, or  other  trick.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
were  of  opinion  that  if  they  set  to  work  with 
all  their  knowledge  and  resources  they  could 
produce  such  pictures  by  natural  means,  and 
therefore  they  would  not  undertake  to  say 
that  these  were  preternatural.  This,  of 
course,  was  quite  reasonable  if  the  pictures 
are  judged  only  as  technical  productions,  but 
it  rather  savours  of  the  old  discredited  anti- 
spiritualistic  argument  that  because  a 
trained  conjurer  can  produce  certain  effects 
under  his  own  conditions,  therefore  some 
woman  or  child  who  gets  similar  effects  must 
get  them  by  conjuring.  It  was  clear  that  at 
the  last  it  was  the  character  and  surround- 
ings of  the  children  upon  which  the  inquiry 
must  turn,  rather  than  upon  the  photos 
themselves.  I  had  already  endeavoured  to 
open  up  human  relations  with  the  elder  girl 
by  sending  her  a  book,  and  I  had  received 
the  following  little  note  in  reply  from  her 
father : 

33 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

31  Main  Street,  Cottingley,  Bingley, 

July  12,  1920. 
Dear  Sir, 

I  hope  you  will  forgive  us  for  not  an- 
swering your  letter  sooner  and  thanking  you 
for  the  beautiful  book  you  so  kindly  sent  to 
Elsie.  She  is  delighted  with  it.  I  can  as- 
sure you  we  do  appreciate  the  honour  you 
have  done  her.  The  book  came  last  Satur- 
day morning  an  hour  after  we  had  left  for 
the  seaside  for  our  holidays,  so  we  did  not 
receive  it  until  last  night.  We  received  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Gardner  at  the  same  time, 
and  he  proposes  coming  to  see  us  at  the  end 
of  July.  Would  it  be  too  long  to  wait  until 
then,  when  we  could  explain  what  we  know 
about  it? 

Yours  very  gratefully, 

Arthur  Wright. 

It  was  evident,  however,  that  we  must  get 
into  more  personal  touch,  and  with  this  ob- 
ject Mr.  Gardner  went  North  and  inter- 
viewed the  whole  family,  making  a  thorough 
investigation  of  the  circumstances  at  the 
spot.    The  result  of  his  journey  is  given  in 

.    34 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

the  article  which  I  published  in  the  Strand 
Magazine,  which  covers  all  the  ground.  I 
will  only  add  the  letter  he  wrote  to  me  after 
his  return  from  Yorkshire. 

5  Craven  Road,  Harlesden,  N.W. 10, 

July  31,  1920. 

My  dear  Conan  Doyle, 

Yours  just  to  hand,  and  as  I  have  now 
had  an  hour  to  sort  things  out  I  write  at  once 
so  that  you  have  the  enclosed  before  you  at 
the  earliest  moment.  You  must  be  very 
pressed,  so  I  put  the  statement  as  simply  as 
possible,  leaving  you  to  use  just  what  you 
think  fit.  Prepared  negatives,  prints  of 
quarter,  half-plate,  and  enlarged  sizes,  and 
lantern  slides,  I  have  all  here. 

Also  on  Tuesday  I  shall  have  my  own 
photographs  of  the  valley  scenery  includ- 
ing the  two  spots  shown  in  the  fairy  prints, 
and  also  prints  of  the  two  children  taken  in 
1917  with  their  shoes  and  stockings  off,  just 
as  they  played  in  the  beck  at  the  rear  of  their 
house.  I  also  have  a  print  of  Elsie  showing 
her  hand. 

With  regard  to  the  points  you  raise ; 

35 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

1.  I  have  definite  leave  and  permission  to 
act  as  regards  the  use  made  of  these  photo- 
graphs in  any  way  I  think  best. 

Publication  may  be  made  of  them,  the 
only  reserve  being  that  full  names  and  ad- 
dresses shall  be  withheld. 

2.  Copies  are  ready  here  for  England  and 
U.  S.  A. 

3.  .  .  .  The  Kodak  people  and  also  the 
Illingworth  Co.  are  unwilling  to  testify.  The 
former,  of  course,  you  know  of.  Illing- 
worths  claim  that  they  could  produce,  by 
means  of  clever  studio  painting  and  model- 
ling, a  similar  negative.  Another  Com- 
pany's expert  made  assertions  concerning 
the  construction  of  the  *' model"  that  I  found 
were  entirely  erroneous  directly  I  saw  the 
real  ground!  They,  however,  barred  any 
publication.  The  net  result,  besides  Snell- 
ing's  views,  is  that  the  photograph  could  be 
produced  by  studio  work,  but  there  is  no 
evidence  positively  of  such  work  in  the  neg- 
atives. (I  might  add  that  Snelling,  whom 
I  saw  again  yesterday  evening,  scouts  the 
claim  that  such  negatives  could  be  produced. 

36 


HOW  THE  MATTER  AROSE 

He  states  that  he  would  pick  such  a  one  out 
without  hesitation!) 

4.  My  report  is  enclosed  and  you  are  at 
perfect  liberty  to  use  this  just  as  you  please. 

The  father,  Mr.  Arthur  Wright,  im- 
pressed me  favourably.  He  was  perfectly 
open  and  free  about  the  whole  matter.  He 
explained  his  position — he  simply  did  not 
understand  the  business,  but  is  quite  clear 
and  positive  that  the  plate  he  took  out  of  the 
Midg  camera  was  the  one  he  put  in  the  same 
day.  His  work  is  that  of  electrician  to  an 
estate  in  the  neighbourhood  near.  He  is 
clear-headed  and  very  intelligent,  and  gives 
one  the  impression  of  being  open  and  honest. 
I  learnt  the  reason  of  the  family's  cordial 
treatment  of  myself.  Mrs.  Wright,  a  few 
years  back,  came  into  touch  with  theosoph- 
ical  teachings  and  speaks  of  these  as  hav- 
ing done  her  good.  My  own  connection  with 
the  Theosophical  Society  she  knew  of  and 
this  gave  them  confidence.  Hence  the  very 
cordial  reception  I  have  met  with,  which 
somewhat  had  puzzled  me. 

By  the  way,  I  think  "L.'s"  guide  ran  up 
against  innocent  little  Snelling  I  He  matches 

37 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

the  description  quite  well,  as  I  realized  last 
night.  And  he  did  prepare  the  new  nega- 
tives from  which  the  prints  you  have  were 
made,  and  he  has  a  room  full  up  with  weird 
machines  with  handles  and  devices  used  in 
photography.  .  .  . 

Sincerely  yours, 
Edw.  L.  Gardner. 

I  trust  that  the  reader  will  agree  that  up 
to  this  point  we  had  not  proceeded  with  any 
undue  rashness  or  credulity,  and  that  we 
had  taken  all  common-sense  steps  to  test  the 
case,  and  had  no  alternative,  if  we  were  un- 
prejudiced seekers  for  truth,  but  to  go  ahead 
with  it,  and  place  our  results  before  the  pub- 
lic, so  that  others  might  discover  the  fallacy 
which  we  had  failed  to  find.  I  must  apolo- 
gize if  some  of  the  ground  in  the  Strand  ar- 
ticle which  follows  has  already  been  cov- 
ered in  this  introductory  chapter. 


38 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  rmST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT — *' STRAND '' 
CHRISTMAS  NUMBER,  1920 

Should  the  incidents  here  narrated,  and 
the  photographs  attached,  hold  their  own 
against  the  criticism  which  they  will  excite, 
it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  they  will 
mark  an  epoch  in  hmnan  thought.  I  put 
them  and  all  the  evidence  before  the  public 
for  examination  and  judgment.  If  I  am  my- 
self asked  whether  I  consider  the  case  to  be 
absolutely  and  finally  proved,  I  should  an- 
swer that  in  order  to  remove  the  last  faint 
shadow  of  doubt  I  should  wish  to  see  the 
result  repeated  before  a  disinterested  wit- 
ness. At  the  same  time,  I  recognize  the  dif- 
ficulty .of  such  a  request,  since  rare  results 
must  be  obtained  when  and  how  they  can. 
But  short  of  final  and  absolute  proof,  I  con- 
sider, after  carefully  going  into  every  pos- 
sible source  of  error,  that  a  strong  primor 

39 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

facie  case  has  been  built  up.  The  cry  of 
**fake"  is  sure  to  be  raised,  and  will  make 
some  impression  upon  those  who  have  not 
had  the  opportunity  of  knowing  the  peo- 
ple concerned,  or  the  place.  On  the  photo- 
graphic side  every  objection  has  been  consid- 
ered and  adequately  met.  The  pictures 
stand  or  fall  together.  Both  are  false,  or 
both  are  true.  All  the  circmnstances  point 
to  the  latter  alternative,  and  yet  in  a  matter 
involving  so  tremendous  a  new  departure 
one  needs  overpowering  evidence  before  one 
can  say  that  there  is  no  conceivable  loophole 
for  error. 

It  was  about  the  month  of  May  in  this 
year  that  I  received  the  information  from 
Miss  Felicia  Scatcherd,  so  well  known  in 
several  departments  of  hinnan  thought,  to 
the  effect  that  two  photographs  of  fairies 
had  been  taken  in  the  North  of  England  un- 
der circumstances  which  seemed  to  put  fraud 
out  of  the  question.  The  statement  would 
have  appealed  to  me  at  any  time,  but  I  hap- 
pened at  the  moment  to  be  collecting  ma- 
terial for  an  article  on  fairies,  now  com- 
pleted, and  I  had  accumulated  a  surprising 
40 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

number  of  cases  of  people  who  claimed  to 
be  able  to  see  these  little  creatures.  The 
evidence  was  so  complete  and  detailed,  with 
such  good  names  attached  to  it,  that  it  was 
difficult  to  believe  that  it  was  false;  but, 
being  by  nature  of  a  somewhat  sceptical 
turn,  I  felt  that  something  closer  was  needed 
before  I  could  feel  personal  conviction  and 
assure  myself  that  these  were  not  thought- 
forms  conjured  up  by  the  imagination  or 
expectation  of  the  seers.  The  rumour  of  the 
photographs  interested  me  deeply,  there- 
fore, and  following  the  matter  up  from  one 
lady  informant  to  another,  I  came  at  last 
upon  Mr.  Edward  L.  Gardner,  who  has  been 
ever  since  my  most  efficient  collaborator,  to 
whom  all  credit  is  due.  Mr.  Gardner,  it  may 
be  remarked,  is  a  member  of  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Theosophical  Society,  and 
a  well-known  lecturer  upon  occult  subjects. 
He  had  not  himself  at  that  time  mastered 
the  whole  case,  but  all  he  had  he  placed 
freely  at  my  disposal.  I  had  already  seen 
prints  of  the  photographs,  but  I  was  relieved 
to  find  that  he  had  the  actual  negatives,  and 
that  it  was  from  them,  and  not  from  the 

41 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

prints,  that  two  expert  photographers,  es- 
pecially Mr.  Snelling  of  26  The  Bridge, 
Wealdstone,  Harrow,  had  already  formed 
their  conclusions  in  favour  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  pictures.  Mr.  Gardner  tells  his 
own  story  presently,  so  I  will  simply  saj 
that  at  that  period  he  had  got  into  direct 
and  friendly  touch  with  the  Carpenter  fam- 
ily. We  are  compelled  to  use  a  pseudomm 
and  to  withhold  the  exact  address,  for  it  is 
clear  that  their  lives  would  be  much  inter- 
rupted by  correspondence  and  callers  if  their 
identity  were  too  clearly  indicated.  At  the 
same  time  there  would  be,  no  doubt,  no  ob- 
jection to  any  small  committee  of  inquiry 
verifying  the  facts  for  themselves  if  this 
anonymity  were  respected.  For  the  present, 
however,  we  shall  simply  call  them  the  Car- 
penter family  in  the  village  of  Dalesby, 
West  Riding. 

Some  three  years  before,  according  to  our 
information,  the  daughter  and  the  niece  of 
Mr.  Carpenter,  the  former  being  sixteen  and 
the  other  ten  years  of  age,  had  taken  the 
two  photographs — the  one  in  summer,  the 
other  in  early  autumn.  The  father  was  quite 
42 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

agnostic  in  the  matter,  but  as  his  daughter 
claimed  that  she  and  her  cousin  when  they 
were  together  continually  saw  fairies  in  the 
wood  and  had  come  to  be  on  familiar  and 
friendly  terms  with  them,  he  entrusted  her 
with  one  plate  in  his  camera.  The  result 
was  the  picture  of  the  dancing  elves,  which 
considerably  amazed  the  father  when  he  de- 
veloped the  film  that  evening.  The  little 
girl  looking  across  at  her  playmate,  to  inti- 
mate that  the  time  had  come  to  press  the 
button,  is  Alice,  the  niece,  while  the  older 
girl,  who  was  taken  some  months  later  with 
the  quaint  gnome,  is  Iris,  the  daughter.  The 
story  ran  that  the  girls  were  so  excited  in 
the  evening  that  one  pressed  her  way  into 
the  small  dark-room  in  which  the  father  was 
about  to  develop,  and  that  as  she  saw  the 
forms  of  the  fairies  showing  through  the 
solution  she  cried  out  to  the  other  girl,  who 
was  palpitating  outside  the  door :  *'0h,  Alice, 
Alice,  the  fairies  are  on  the  plate — they  are 
on  the  plate ! "  It  was  indeed  a  triumph  for 
the  children,  who  had  been  smiled  at,  as  so 
many  children  are  smiled  at  by  an  incredu- 

43 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

lous  world  for  stating  what  their  own  senses 
have  actually  recorded. 

The  father  holds  a  position  of  trust  in  con- 
nection with  some  local  factory,  and  the  fam- 
ily are  well  known  and  respected.  That  they 
are  cultivated  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Gardner's  advances  towards  them  were  made 
more  easy  because  Mrs.  Carpenter  was  a 
reader  of  theosophical  teachings  and  had 
gained  spiritual  good  from  them.  A  corre- 
spondence had  arisen  and  all  their  letters 
were  frank  and  honest,  professing  some 
amazement  at  the  stir  which  the  affair 
seemed  likely  to  produce. 

Thus  the  matter  stood  after  my  meeting 
with  Mr.  Gardner,  but  it  was  clear  that  this 
was  not  enough.  We  must  get  closer  to  the 
facts.  The  negatives  were  taken  round  to 
Kodak,  Ltd.,  where  two  experts  were  unable 
to  find  any  flaw,  but  refused  to  testify  to  the 
genuineness  of  them,  in  view  of  some  pos- 
sible trap.  An  amateur  photographer  of  ex- 
perience refused  to  accept  them  on  the 
ground  of  the  elaborate  and  Parisian  coif- 
fure of  the  little  ladies.  Another  photo- 
graphic company,  which  it  would  be  cruel  to 
44 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

name,  declared  that  the  background  con- 
sisted of  theatrical  properties,  and  that 
therefore  the  picture  was  a  worthless  fake. 
I  leaned  heavily  upon  Mr.  Snelling's  whole- 
hearted endorsement,  quoted  later  in  this  ar- 
ticle, and  also  consoled  myself  by  the  broad 
view  that  if  the  local  conditions  were  as  re- 
ported, which  we  proposed  to  test,  then  it 
was  surely  impossible  that  a  little  village 
with  an  amateur  photographer  could  have 
the  plant  and  the  skill  to  turn  out  a  fake 
which  could  not  be  detected  by  the  best  ex- 
perts in  London. 

The  matter  being  in  this  state,  Mr.  Gard- 
ner volunteered  to  go  up  at  once  and  report 
— an  expedition  which  I  should  have  wished 
to  share  had  it  not  been  for  the  pressure  of 
work  before  my  approaching  departure  for 
Australia.  Mr.  Gardner's  report  is  here  ap- 
pended : 

5  Craven  Road,  Harlesden,  iV.TF.lO, 

Juhj  29,  1920. 
It  was  early  in  this  year,  1920,  that  I 
heard  from  a  friend  of  photographs  of  fair- 
ies having  been  successfully  taken  in  the 

45 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

North  of  England.  I  made  some  inquiries, 
and  these  led  to  prints  being  sent  to  me  with 
the  names  and  address  of  the  children  who 
were  said  to  have  taken  them.  The  corre- 
spondence that  followed  seemed  so  innocent 
and  promising  that  I  begged  the  loan  of  the 
actual  negatives — and  two  quarter-plates 
came  by  post  a  few  days  after.  One  was  a 
fairly  clear  one,  the  other  much  under- 
exposed. 

The  negatives  proved  to  be  truly  astonish- 
ing photographs  indeed,  for  there  was  no 
sign  of  double  exposure  nor  anything 
other  than  ordinary  straightforward  work. 
I  cycled  over  to  Harrow  to  consult  an  expert 
photographer  of  thirty  years'  practical  ex- 
perience whom  I  knew  I  could  trust  for  a 
sound  opinion.  Without  any  explanation  I 
passed  the  plates  over  and  asked  what  he 
thought  of  them.  After  examining  the 
*' fairies"  negative  carefully,  exclamations 
began:  **This  is  the  most  extraordinary 
thing  I  've  ever  seen ! "  '  *  Single  exposure ! ' ' 
** Figures  have  moved!"  "Why,  it's  a  gen- 
uine photograph  I  Wherever  did  it  come 
from?" 
46 


\ 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

I  need  hardly  add  that  enlargements  were 
made  and  subjected  to  searching  examina- 
tion— without  any  modification  of  opinion. 
The  immediate  upshot  was  that  a  ** positive" 
was  taken  from  each  negative,  that  the  orig- 
inals might  be  preserved  carefully  un- 
touched, and  then  new  negatives  were  pre- 
pared and  intensified  to  serve  as  better  print- 
ing medimns.  The  originals  are  just  as  re- 
ceived and  in  my  keeiDing  now.  Some  good 
prints  and  lantern  slides  were  soon  pre- 
pared. 

In  May  I  used  the  slides,  with  others,  to 
illustrate  a  lecture  given  in  the  Mortimer 
Hall,  London,  and  this  aroused  considerable 
interest,  largely  because  of  these  pictures 
and  their  story.  A  week  or  so  later  I  re- 
ceived a  letter  from  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle  ask- 
ing for  information  concerning  them,  some 
report,  I  imderstood,  having  reached  him 
from  a  mutual  friend.  A  meeting  with  Sir 
Arthur  followed,  and  the  outcome  was  that 
I  agreed  to  hasten  my  proposed  personal 
investigation  into  the  origin  of  the  photo- 
graphs, and  carry  this  through  at  once  in- 

47 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

stead  of  waiting  till  September,  when  I 
should  be  in  the  North  on  other  matters. 

In  consequence,  to-day,  July  29, 1  am  just 
back  in  London  from  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting and  surprising  excursions  that  it  has 
ever  been  my  fortune  to  make  I 

We  had  time,  before  I  went,  to  obtain  opin- 
ions on  the  original  negatives  from  other  ex- 
pert photographers,  and  one  or  two  of  these 
were  adverse  rather  than  favourable.  Not 
that  any  would  say  positively  that  the  photo- 
graphs were  faked,  but  two  did  claim  that 
they  could  produce  the  same  class  of  nega- 
tive by  studio  work  involving  painted  mod- 
els, etc.,  and  it  was  suggested  further  that 
the  little  girl  in  the  first  picture  was  stand- 
ing behind  a  table  heaped  up  with  fern  and 
moss,  that  the  toad-stool  was  unnatural,  that 
in  the  gnome  photo  the  girl's  hand  was  not 
her  own,  that  uniform  shading  was  question- 
able, and  so  on.  All  of  this  had  its  weight, 
and  though  I  went  North  with  as  little  bias 
one  way  or  the  other  as  possible,  I  felt  quite 
prepared  to  find  that  a  personal  investiga- 
tion would  disclose  some  evidence  of  falsity. 

The  lengthy  journey  completed,  I  reached 
48 


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THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

a  quaint,  old-world  village  in  Yorkshire, 
found  the  house,  and  was  cordially  received. 
Mrs.  C.  and  her  daughter  I.  (the  girl  as 
shown  playing  with  the  gnome)  were  both 
at  home  to  meet  me,  and  Mr.  C,  the  father, 
came  in  shortly  afterwards. 

Several  of  the  objections  raised  by  the 
professionals  were  disposed  of  almost  at 
once,  as,  a  half-hour  after  reaching  the 
house,  I  was  exploring  a  charming  little  val- 
ley, directly  at  the  rear,  with  a  stream  of 
water  running  through,  where  the  children 
had  been  accustomed  to  see  and  play  with 
the  fairies.  I  found  the  bank  behind  which 
the  child,  with  her  shoes  and  stockings  off, 
is  shown  as  standing ;  toad-stools  exactly  as 
in  the  photograph  were  about  in  plenty, 
quite  as  big  and  hearty-looking.  And  the 
girl's  hand  ?  Well,  she  laughingly  made  me 
promise  not  to  say  much  about  it,  it  is  so 
very  long !  I  stood  on  the  spots  shown  and 
easily  identified  every  feature.  Then,  in 
course  of  eliciting  all  that  one  could  learn 
about  the  affair,  I  gathered  the  following, 
which,  for  the  sake  of  conciseness,  I  set  out 
below : 

49 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

Camera  used:  ''The  Midg"  quarter-plate. 
Plates:  Imperial  Rapid. 

Fairies  photo :  July  1917.  Day  brilliantly 
hot  and  sunny.  About  3  p.  m.  Distance: 
4  feet.    Time :  l-50th  second. 

Gnome  photo:  September  1917.  Day 
bright,  but  not  as  above.  About  4  o'clock. 
Distance :  8  feet.    Time :  l-50th  second. 

I.  was  sixteen  years  old;  her  cousin  A. 
was  ten  years.  Other  photographs  were  at- 
tempted but  proved  partial  failures,  and 
plates  were  not  kept. 

Colouring:  The  palest  of  green,  pink, 
mauve.  Much  more  in  the  wings  than  in  the 
bodies,  which  are  very  pale  to  white.  The 
gnome  is  described  as  seeming  to  be  in  black 
tights,  reddish-brown  jersey,  and  red 
pointed  cap.  He  was  swinging  his  pipes, 
holding  them  in  his  left  hand  and  was  just 
stepping  up  on  to  I.  's  knee  when  A.  snapped 
him. 

A.,  the  visiting  cousin,  went  away  soon 

after,  and  I.  says  they  must  be  together  to 

'  *  take  photographs. ' '    Fortunately  they  will 

meet  in  a  few  weeks'  time,  and  they  promise 

50 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

me  to  try  to  get  some  more.  I.  added  she 
would  very  much  like  to  send  me  one  of  a 
fairy  flying. 

Mr.  C.  's  testimony  was  clear  and  decisive. 
His  daughter  had  jDleaded  to  be  allowed  to 
use  the  camera.  At  first  he  demurred,  but 
ultimately,  after  dinner  one  Saturday,  he 
put  just  one  plate  in  the  Midg  and  gave  it 
to  the  girls.  They  returned  in  less  than  an 
hour  and  begged  him  to  develop  the  plate  as 
I.  had  *' taken  a  photograph."  He  did  so, 
with,  to  him,  the  bewildering  result  shown 
in  the  print  of  the  fairies  I 

Mrs.  C.  says  she  remembers  quite  well 
that  the  girls  were  only  away  from  the  house 
a  short  time  before  they  brought  the  camera 
back. 

Extraordinary  and  amazing  as  these 
photographs  may  appear,  I  am  now  quite 
convinced  of  their  entire  genuineness,  as  in- 
deed would  everyone  else  be  who  had  the 
same  evidence  of  transparent  honesty  and 
simplicity  that  I  had.  I  am  adding  nothing 
by  way  of  explanations  or  theories  of  my 
own,  though  the  need  for  two  people,  prefer- 
ably children,  is  fairly  obvious  for  photog- 

51 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

raphj,  in  order  to  assist  in  the  strengthen- 
ing of  the  etheric  bodies.  Beyond  this  I 
prefer  to  leave  the  above  statement  as  a 
plain,  unvarnished  narrative  of  my  connec- 
tion with  the  incidents. 

I  need  only  add  that  no  attempt  appears 
ever  to  have  been  made  by  the  family  to 
make  these  photographs  public,  and  what- 
ever has  been  done  in  that  direction  locally 
has  not  been  pressed  by  any  of  them,  nor 
has  there  been  any  money  payment  in  con- 
nection with  them. 

Edward  L.  Gardner. 

I  may  add  as  a  footnote  to  Mr.  Gardner's 
report  that  the  girl  informed  him  in  con- 
versation that  she  had  no  power  of  any  sort 
over  the  actions  of  the  fairies,  and  that  the 
way  to  *'  'tice  them,"  as  she  called  it,  was 
to  sit  passively  with  her  mind  quietly  turned 
in  that  direction ;  then,  when  faint  stirrings 
or  movements  in  the  distance  heralded  their 
presence,  to  beckon  towards  them  and  show 
that  they  were  welcome.  It  was  Iris  who 
pointed  out  the  pipes  of  the  gnome,  which 
we  had  both  taken  as  being  the  markings  of 
52 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

the  moth-like  under-wing.  She  added  that 
if  there  was  not  too  much  rustling  in  the 
wood  it  was  possible  to  hear  the  very  faint 
and  high  sound  of  the  pipes.  To  the  ob- 
jections of  jphotographers  that  the  fairy 
figures  show  quite  different  shadows  to  those 
of  the  human  our  answer  is  that  ectoplasm, 
as  the  etheric  protoplasm  has  been  named, 
has  a  faint  luminosity  of  its  own,  which 
would  largely  modify  shadows. 

To  the  very  clear  and,  as  I  think,  entirely 
convincing  report  of  Mr.  Gardner's,  let  me 
add  the  exact  words  which  Mr.  Snelling,  the 
expert  photographer,  allows  us  to  use.  Mr. 
Snelling  has  shown  great  strength  of  mind, 
and  rendered  signal  service  to  psychic  study, 
by  taking  a  strong  line,  and  putting  his  pro- 
fessional reputation  as  an  expert  upon  the 
scales.  He  has  had  a  varied  connection  of 
over  thirty  years  with  the  Autotjrpe  Com- 
pany and  lUingworth's  large  photographic 
factory,  and  has  himself  turned  out  some 
beautiful  work  of  every  kind  of  natural  and 
artificial  studio  studies.  He  laughs  at  the 
idea  that  any  expert  in  England  could  de- 
ceive him  with  a  faked  photograph.    *  ^  These 

53 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

two  negatives,"  he  says,  **are  entirely  genu- 
ine, unfaked  photographs  of  single  expo- 
sure, open-air  work,  show  movement  in  the 
fairy  figures,  and  there  is  no  trace  whatever 
of  studio  work  involving  card  or  paper  mod- 
els, dark  backgrounds,  painted  figures,  etc. 
In  my  opinion,  they  are  both  straight  un- 
touched pictures." 

A  second  independent  opinion  is  equally 
clear  as  to  the  genuine  character  of  the 
photographs,  founded  upon  a  large  experi- 
ence of  practical  photography. 

There  is  our  case,  fortified  by  pictures  of 
the  places  which  the  unhappy  critic  has  de- 
clared to  be  theatrical  properties.  How  well 
we  know  that  type  of  critic  in  all  our  psychic 
Iwork,  though  it  is  not  always  possible  to  at 
once  show  his  absurdity  to  other  people. 

I  will  now  make  a  few  comments  upon  the 
two  pictures,  which  I  have  studied  long  and 
earnestly  with  a  high-power  lens. 

One  fact  of  interest  is  this  presence  of  a 
double  pipe — the  very  sort  which  the  an- 
cients associated  with  fauns  and  naiads — in 
each  picture.  But  if  pipes,  why  not  every- 
thing else  ?  Does  it  not  suggest  a  complete 
54 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

range  of  utensils  and  instruments  for  their 
own  life?  Their  clothing  is  substantial 
enough.  It  seems  to  me  that. with  fuller 
knowledge  and  with  fresh  means  of  vision 
these  people  are  destined  to  become  just  as 
solid  and  real  as  the  Eskimos.  There  is  an 
ornamental  rim  to  the  pipe  of  the  elves  which 
shows  that  the  graces  of  art  are  not  unknown 
among  them.  And  what  joy  is  in  the  com- 
plete abandon  of  their  little  graceful  figures 
as  they  let  themselves  go  in  the  dance !  They 
may  have  their  shadows  and  trials  as  we 
have,  but  at  least  there  is  a  great  gladness 
manifest  in  this  demonstration  of  their  life. 
A  second  general  observation  is  that  the 
elves  are  a  compound  of  the  human  and  the 
butterfly,  while  the  gnome  has  more  of  the 
moth.  This  may  be  merely  the  result  of 
under-exposure  of  the  negative  and  dullness 
of  the  weather.  Perhaps  the  little  gnome 
is  really  of  the  same  tribe,  but  represents  an 
elderly  male,  while  the  elves  are  romping 
young  women.  Most  observers  of  fairy  life 
have  reported,  however,  that  there  are  sep- 
arate species,  varying  very  much  in  size,  ap- 

55 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

pearance,  and  locality — the  wood  fairy,  the 
water  fairy,  the  fairy  of  the  plains,  etc. 

Can  these  be  thought-forms?  The  fact 
that  they  are  so  like  our  conventional  idea 
of  fairies  is  in  favour  of  the  idea.  But  if 
they  move  rapidly,  have  musical  instru- 
ments, and  so  forth,  then  it  is  impossible  to 
talk  of  ''thought- forms,"  a  term  which  sug- 
gests something  vague  and  intangible.  In 
a  sense  we  are  all  thought-forms,  since  we 
can  only  be  perceived  through  the  senses, 
but  these  little  figures  would  seem  to  have 
an  objective  reality,  as  we  have  ourselves, 
even  if  their  vibrations  should  prove  to  be 
such  that  it  takes  either  psychic  power  or  a 
sensitive  plate  to  record  them.  If  they  are 
conventional  it  may  be  that  fairies  have 
really  been  seen  in  every  generation,  and 
so  some  correct  description  of  them  has  been 
retained. 

There  is  one  point  of  Mr.  Gardner's  in- 
vestigation which  should  be  mentioned.  It 
had  come  to  our  knowledge  that  Iris  could 
draw,  and  had  actually  at  one  time  done 
some  designs  for  a  jeweller.  This  naturally 
demanded  caution,  though  the  girl's  own 
56 


THE  FIRST  PUBLISHED  ACCOUNT 

frank  nature  is,  I  understand,  a  sufficient 
guarantee  for  those  who  know  her.  Mr. 
Gardner,  however,  tested  her  powers  of 
drawing,  and  found  that,  while  she  could 
do  landscapes  cleverly,  the  fairy  figures 
which  she  had  attempted  in  imitation  of 
those  she  had  seen  were  entirely  uninspired, 
and  bore  no  possible  resemblance  to  those  in 
the  photograph.  Another  point  which  may 
be  commended  to  the  careful  critic  with 
a  strong  lens  is  that  the  apparent  pencilled 
face  at  the  side  of  the  figure  on  the  right 
is  really  only  the  edge  of  her  hair,  and  not, 
as  might  appear,  a  drawn  profile. 

I  must  confess  that  after  months  of 
thought  I  am  unable  to  get  the  true  bear- 
ings of  this  event.  One  or  two  consequences 
are  obvious.  The  experiences  of  children 
will  be  taken  more  seriously.  Cameras  will 
be  forthcoming.  Other  well-authenticated 
cases  will  come  along.  These  little  folk  who 
appear  to  be  our  neighbours,  with  only  some 
small  difference  of  vibration  to  separate  us, 
will  become  familiar.  The  thought  of  them, 
even  when  unseen,  will  add  a  charm  to  every 
brook  and  valley  and  give  romantic  interest 

57 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

to  every  country  walk.  The  recognition  of 
their  existence  will  jolt  the  material  twen- 
tieth-century mind  out  of  its  heavy  ruts 
in  the  mud,  and  will  make  it  admit  that 
there  is  a  glamour  and  a  mystery  to  life. 
Having  discovered  this,  the  world  will  not 
find  it  so  difficult  to  accept  that  spiritual 
message  supported  by  physical  facts  which 
has  already  been  so  convincingly  put  before 
it.  All  this  I  see,  but  there  may  be  much 
more.  When  Columbus  knelt  in  prayer  upon 
the  edge  of  America,  what  prophetic  eye 
saw  all  that  a  new  continent  might  do  to 
affect  the  destinies  of  the  world?  We  also 
seem  to  be  on  the  edge  of  a  new  continent, 
separated  not  by  oceans  but  by  subtle  and 
surmountable  psychic  conditions.  I  look  at 
the  prospect  with  awe.  May  those  little  crea- 
tures suffer  from  the  contact  and  some  Las 
Casas  bewail  their  ruin !  If  so,  it  would  be 
an  evil  day  when  the  world  defined  their 
existence.  But  there  is  a  guiding  hand  in 
the  affairs  of  man,  and  we  can  but  trust  and 
follow. 


58 


CHAPTER  III 

RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

Though  I  was  out  of  England  at  the  time, 
I  was  able,  even  in  Australia,  to  realize  that 
the  appearance  of  the  first  photographs  in 
the  Strand  Magazine  had  caused  very  great 
interest.  The  press  comments  were  as  a  rule 
cautious  but  not  unsympathetic.  The  old 
cry  of  "Fake!"  was  less  conspicuous  than 
I  had  expected,  but  for  some  years  the  press 
has  been  slowly  widening  its  views  upon 
psychic  matters,  and  is  not  so  inclined  as 
of  old  to  attribute  every  new  manifestation 
to  fraud.  Some  of  the  Yorkshire  papers 
had  made  elaborate  inquiries,  and  I  am  told 
that  photographers  for  a  considerable  radius 
from  the  house  were  cross-questioned  to  find 
if  they  were  accomplices.  Truth,  which  is 
obsessed  by  the  idea  that  the  whole  spiritual- 
istic movement  and  everything  connected 

59 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

with  it  is  one  huge,  senseless  conspiracy  to 
deceive,  concocted  by  knaves  and  accepted 
by  fools,  bad  the  usual  contemptuous  and 
contemptible  articles,  which  ended  by  a 
prayer  to  Elsie  that  she  should  finish  her 
fun  and  let  the  public  know  how  it  really 
was  done.  The  best  of  the  critical  attacks 
was  in  the  Westminster  Gazette,  who  sent  a 
special  commissioner  to  unravel  the  mystery, 
and  published  the  result  on  January  12, 
1921.  By  kind  permission  I  reproduce  the 
article ; 

do  faieies  exist? 

investigation  in  a  yorkshire  valley 

cottingley's  mystery 

story  of  the  girl  who  took  the  snapshot 

The  publication  of  photographs  of  fairies 
— or,  to  be  more  explicit,  one  photograph  of 
fairies  and  another  of  a  gnome — playing 
round  children  has  aroused  considerable  in- 
terest, not  only  in  Yorkshire,  where  the 
beings  are  said  to  exist,  but  throughout  the 
country. 
60 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    FIRST   PHOTOGRAPHS 

The  story,  mysterious  as  it  was  when  first 
told,  became  even  more  enigmatical  by  rea- 
son of  the  fact  that  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle 
made  use  of  fictitious  names  in  his  narra- 
tive in  the  Strand  Magazine  in  order,  as  he 
says,  to  prevent  the  lives  of  the  people  con- 
cerned being  interrupted  by  callers  and  cor- 
respondence. That  he  has  failed  to  do.  I 
am  afraid  Sir  Conan  does  not  know  York- 
shire people,  particularly  those  of  the  dales, 
because  any  attempt  to  hide  identity  imme- 
diately arouses  their  suspicions,  if  it  does 
not  go  so  far  as  to  condemn  the  writer  for 
his  lack  of  frankness. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  his 
story  is  accepted  with  reserve.  Each  per- 
son to  whom  I  spoke  of  the  subject  during 
my  brief  sojourn  in  Yorkshire  dismissed  the 
matter  curtly  as  being  untrue.  It  has  been 
the  principal  topic  of  conversation  for 
weeks,  mainly  because  identity  had  been  dis- 
covered. 

My  mission  to  Yorkshire  was  to  secure 
evidence,  if  possible,  which  would  prove  or 
disprove  the  claim  that  fairies  existed.  I 
frankly  confess  that  I  failed. 

61 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

The  particular  fairyland  is  a  picturesque 
little  spot  off  the  beaten  track,  two  or  three 
miles  from  Bingley.  Here  is  a  small  village 
called  Cottingley,  almost  hidden  in  a  break 
in  the  upland,  through  which  tumbles  a  tiny 
stream,  known  as  Cottingley  Beck,  on  its 
way  to  the  Aire,  less  than  a  mile  away.  The 
** heroine"  of  Sir  Conan  Doyle's  story  is 
Miss  Elsie  Wright,^  who  resides  with  her 
parents  at  31  Lynwood  Terrace.  The  little 
stream  runs  past  the  back  of  the  house,  and 
the  photographs  were  taken  not  more  than 
a  hundred  yards  away.  When  Miss  Wright 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  fairies  she  was 
accompanied  by  her  cousin,  Frances  Grif- 
fiths, who  resides  at  Dean  Road,  Scarbor- 
ough. 

One  photograph,  taken  by  Miss  Wright  in 
the  summer  of  1917,  when  she  was  sixteen, 
shows  her  cousin,  then  a  child  of  ten,  with  a 
group  of  four  fairies  dancing  in  the  air  be- 
fore her,  and  in  the  other,  taken  some 
months   afterwards,   Elsie,   seated   on  the 

'  From  this  time  onwards  the  real  name  Wright  is  used  in- 
stead of  Carpenter  as  in  the  original  article — the  family  hav- 
ing withdrawn  their  objection. 

62 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

grass,  has  a  quaint  gnome  dancing  beside 
her. 

There  are  certain  facts  which  stand  out 
clearly  and  which  none  of  the  evidence  I 
was  able  to  obtain  could  shake.  No  other 
people  have  seen  the  fairies,  though  every- 
body in  the  little  village  knew  of  their 
alleged  existence ;  when  Elsie  took  the  photo- 
graph she  was  unacquainted  with  the  use 
of  a  camera,  and  succeeded  at  the  first  at- 
tempt; the  girls  did  not  invite  a  third  per- 
son to  see  the  wonderful  visitors,  and  no 
attempt  was  made  to  make  the  discovery 
public. 

First  I  interviewed  Mrs.  Wright,  who, 
without  hesitation,  narrated  the  whole  of  the 
circumstances  without  adding  any  comment. 
The  girls,  she  said,  would  spend  the  whole 
of  the  day  in  the  narrow  valley,  even  taking 
their  lunch  with  them,  though  they  were 
within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  house.  Elsie 
was  not  robust,  and  did  not  work  during  the 
summer  months,  so  that  she  could  derive  as 
much  benefit  as  possible  from  playing  in  the 
open.  She  had  often  talked  about  seeing 
the  fairies,  but  her  parents  considered  it  was 

63 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

nothing  more  than  childish  fancy,  and  let  it 
pass.  Mr.  Wright  came  into  possession  of  a 
small  camera  in  1917,  and  one  Saturday 
afternoon  yielded  to  the  persistent  entreat- 
ies of  his  daughter  and  allowed  her  to  take 
it  out.  He  placed  one  plate  in  position,  and 
explained  to  her  how  to  take  a  * '  snap. ' '  The 
children  went  away  in  high  glee  and  re- 
turned in  less  than  an  hour,  requesting  Mr. 
Wright  to  develop  the  plate.  While  this 
was  being  done  Elsie  noticed  that  the  fairies 
were  beginning  to  show,  and  exclaimed  in 
an  excited  tone  to  her  cousin,  *'0h,  Frances, 
the  fairies  are  on  the  plate!"  The  second 
photograph  was  equally  successful,  and  a 
few  prints  from  each  plate  were  given  to 
friends  as  curiosities  about  a  year  ago.  They 
evidently  attracted  little  notice  until  one  was 
shown  to  some  of  the  delegates  at  a  Theo- 
sophical  Congress  in  Harrogate  last  sum- 
mer. 

Mrs.  Wright  certainly  gave  me  the  im- 
pression that  she  had  no  desire  to  keep  any- 
thing back,  and  answered  my  questions 
quite  frankly.  She  told  me  that  Elsie  had 
always  been  a  truthful  girl,  and  there  were 
64 


Ki.siK  si:ati:i)  on    iiik  isank  on   which    rni:   i  aiimks 
w  i:i:i:  |)AN(1\(;   in    I'.HT    i  riuiio   I'.i'ioi 


TIIK    FAIL    (11      WATKH    .11  ST    AI'.OVK    TllK    SITi: 
OF    I. AST     I'lloroci:  MMI 


V.        1H.\.\('I:S    AMI    'IIIK    l.KAIM  \(;    lAlUY 

Pliotosiai)h  tsikiii  liy  Elsie  in  Anyiist,  1!I20.  'Tanieo"  caint'ia.  Distanre. 
::  I't.  Tinie.  1  .'lOtli  sec.  Tliis  negative  anil  tile  two  follow  iuK  ( H  anil  1-;  t 
have  lieen  as  strietly  examined  as  the  eai'lier  ones,  and  siniilaily  disilose 
no  tl-aee  of  beins  othei-  than  peifeetly  Kenuine  photo^'iaphs.  Also  they 
proved  to  have  been  taken  fioni  the  itaeket  Kiven  them,  eaeh  jilate  having 
heen   iJiivately   marked    unknown   to   the   Kills. 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

neighbours  who  accepted  the  story  of  the 
fairies  simply  on  the  strength  of  their 
knowledge  of  her.  I  asked  about  Elsie's  ca- 
reer, and  her  mother  said  that  after  she  left 
school  she  worked  a  few  months  for  a  pho- 
tographer in  Manningham  Lane,  Bradford, 
but  did  not  care  for  running  errands  most 
of  the  day.  The  only  other  work  she  did 
there  was  "spotting."  N.either  occupation 
was  likely  to  teach  a  fourteen-year-old  girl 
how  to  * '  fake ' '  a  plate.  From  there  she  went 
to  a  jeweller's  shop,  but  her  stay  there  was 
not  prolonged.  For  many  months  immedi- 
ately prior  to  taking  the  first  photograph 
she  was  at  home  and  did  not  associate  with 
anyone  who  possessed  a  camera. 

At  that  time  her  father  knew  little  of  pho- 
tography, "only  what  he  had  picked  up  by 
dodging  about  with  the  camera,"  as  he  put 
it,  and  any  suggestion  that  he  had  faked  the 
plate  must  be  dismissed. 

When  he  came  home  from  the  neighbour- 
ing mill,  and  was  told  the  nature  of  my 
errand,  he  said  he  was  "fed  up"  with  the 
whole  business,  and  had  nothing  else  to  tell. 
However,  he  detailed  the  story  I  had  already 

65 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

heard  from  his  wife,  agreeing  in  every  par- 
ticular, and  Elsie's  account,  given  to  me  in 
Bradford,  added  nothing.  Thus  I  had  the 
information  from  the  three  members  of  the 
family  at  different  times,  and  without  varia- 
tion. The  parents  confessed  they  had  some 
difficulty  in  accepting  the  photographs  as 
genuine  and  even  questioned  the  girls  as  to 
how  they  faked  them.  The  children  per- 
sisted in  their  story,  and  denied  any  act  of 
dishonesty.  Then  they  *'let  it  go  at  that." 
Even  now  their  belief  in  the  existence  of  the 
fairies  is  merely  an  acceptance  of  the  state- 
ments of  their  daughter  and  her  cousin. 

I  ascertained  that  Elsie  was  described  by 
her  late  schoolmaster  as  being  ** dreamy," 
and  her  mother  said  that  anything  imagina- 
tive appealed  to  her.  As  to  whether  she 
could  have  drawn  the  fairies  when  she  was 
sixteen  I  am  doubtful.  Lately  she  has  taken 
up  water-colour  drawing,  and  her  work, 
which  I  carefully  examined,  does  not  reveal 
that  ability  in  a  marked  degree,  though  she 
possesses  a  remarkable  knowledge  of  colour 
for  an  untrained  artist. 

Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle  says  that  at  first  he 
66 


RECEPTION    OF   THE    FIRST   PHOTOGRAPHS 

was  not  convinced  that  the  fairies  were  not 
thought-forms  conjured  up  by  the  imagina- 
tion or  expectation  of  the  seers.  Mr.  E.  L. 
Gardner,  a  member  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Theosophical  Society,  who 
made  an  investigation  on  the  spot  and  also 
interviewed  all  the  members  of  the  family, 
records  his  opinion  that  the  photographs 
are  genuine. 

Later  in  the  day  I  went  to  Bradford,  and 
at  Sharpe's  Christmas  Card  Manufactory 
saw  Miss  Wright.  She  was  working  in  an 
upper  room,  and  at  first  refused  to  see  me, 
sending  a  message  to  the  effect  that  she  did 
not  desire  to  be  interviewed.  A  second  re- 
quest was  successful,  and  she  appeared  at  a 
small  counter  at  the  entrance  to  the  works. 

She  is  a  tall,  slim  girl,  with  a  wealth  of 
auburn  hair,  through  which  a  narrow  gold 
band,  circling  her  head,  was  entwined. 

Like  her  parents,  she  just  said  she  had 
nothing  to  say  about  the  photographs,  and, 
singularly  enough,  used  the  same  expres- 
sion as  her  father  and  mother — "I  am  ^fed 
up'  with  the  thing." 

She  gradually  became  communicative,  and 

67 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

told  me  how  she  came  to  take  the  first  pho- 
tograph. 

Asked  where  the  fairies  came  from,  she 
replied  that  she  did  not  know. 

**Did  you  see  them  come?"  I  asked;  and 
on  receiving  an  affirmative  reply,  suggested 
that  she  must  have  noticed  where  they  came 
from. 

Miss  Wright  hesitated,  and  laughingly 
answered,  "I  can't  say."  She  was  equally 
at  a  loss  to  explain  where  they  went  after 
dancing  near  her,  and  was  embarrassed 
when  I  pressed  for  a  fuller  explanation. 
Two  or  three  questions  went  unanswered, 
and  my  suggestion  that  they  must  have 
"simply  vanished  into  the  air"  drew  the 
monosyllabic  reply,  "Yes."  They  did  not 
speak  to  her,  she  said,  nor  did  she  speak  to 
them. 

When  she  had  been  with  her  cousin  she 
had  often  seen  them  before.  They  were  only 
kiddies  when  they  first  saw  them,  she  re- 
marked, and  did  not  tell  anybody. 

"But,"  I  went  on,  "it  is  natural  to  expect 
that  a  child,  seeing  fairies  for  the  first  time, 
would  tell  its  mother."  Her  answer  was  to 
68 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

repeat  that  she  did  not  tell  anybody.  The 
first  occasion  on  which  fairies  were  seen,  it 
transpired,  was  in  1915. 

In  reply  to  further  questions.  Miss 
Wright  said  she  had  seen  them  since,  and 
had  photographed  them,  and  the  plates  were 
in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Gardner.  Even 
after  several  prints  of  the  first  lot  of  fairies 
had  been  given  to  friends,  she  did  not  inform 
anybody  that  she  had  seen  them  again.  The 
fact  that  nobody  else  in  the  village  had  seen 
them  gave  her  no  surprise.  She  firmly  be- 
lieved that  she  and  her  cousin  were  the  only 
persons  who  had  been  so  fortunate,  and  was 
equally  convinced  that  nobody  else  woidd 
be.  *'If  anybody  else  were  there,'*  she  said, 
**the  fairies  would  not  come  out.'' 

Further  questions  put  with  the  object  of 
eliciting  a  reason  for  that  statement  were 
only  answered  with  smiles  and  a  final  sig- 
nificant remark,  *'You  don't  understand." 

Miss  Wright  still  believes  in  the  existence 
of  the  fairies,  and  is  looking  forward  to  see- 
ing them  again  in  the  coming  summer. 

The  fairies  of  Cottingley,  as  they  ap- 
peared to  the  two  girls,  are  fine-weather 

69 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

elves,  as  Miss  Wright  said  they  appeared 
only  when  it  was  bright  and  sunny;  never 
when  the  weather  was  dull  or  wet. 

The  strangest  part  of  the  girPs  story  was 
her  statement  that  in  their  more  recent  ap- 
pearances the  fairies  were  more  ''trans- 
parent" than  in  1916  and  1917,  when  they 
were  "rather  hard."  Then  she  added  the 
qualification,  "You  see,  we  were  young 
then."  This  she  did  not  amplify,  though 
pressed  to  do  so. 

The  hitherto  obscure  village  promises  to 
be  the  scene  of  many  pilgrimages  during  the 
coming  summer.  There  is  an  old  saying  in 
Yorkshire:  "Ah '11  believe  what  Ah  see," 
which  is  still  maintained  as  a  valuable 
maxim. 

The  general  tone  of  this  article  makes  it 
clear  that  the  Commissioner  would  very 
naturally  have  been  well  pleased  to  effect  a 
coup  by  showing  up  the  whole  concern.  He 
was,  however,  a  fair-minded  and  intelligent 
man,  and  has  easily  exchanged  the  role  of 
Counsel  for  the  Prosecution  to  that  of  a 
tolerant  judge.  It  will  be  observed  that  he 
70 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

brought  out  no  new  fact  which  had  not  al- 
ready appeared  in  my  article,  save  the  inter- 
esting point  that  this  was  absolutely  the 
first  photograph  which  the  children  had 
ever  taken  in  their  lives.  Is  it  conceivable 
that  under  such  circumstances  they  could 
have  produced  a  picture  which  was  fraudu- 
lent and  yet  defied  the  examination  of  so 
many  experts  ?  Granting  the  honesty  of  the 
father,  which  no  one  has  ever  impugned, 
Elsie  could  only  have  done  it  by  cut-out 
images,  which  must  have  been  of  exquisite 
beauty,  of  many  different  models,  fashioned 
and  kept  without  the  knowledge  of  her 
parents,  and  capable  of  giving  the  impres- 
sion of  motion  when  carefully  examined  by 
an  expert.    Surely  this  is  a  large  order! 

In  the  Westminster  article  it  is  clear  that 
the  writer  has  not  had  much  acquaintance 
with  psychic  research.  His  surprise  that  a 
young  girl  should  not  know  whence  appear- 
ances come  or  whither  they  go,  when  they 
are  psychic  forms  materializing  in  her  own 
peculiar  aura,  does  not  seem  reasonable.  It 
is  a  familiar  fact  also  that  psychic  phe- 
nomena are  always  more  active  in  warm 

71 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

sunny  weather  than  in  damp  or  cold. 
Finally,  the  girl's  remark  that  the  shapes 
were  getting  more  diaphanous  was  a  very 
suggestive  one,  for  it  is  with  childhood  that 
certain  forms  of  mediumship  are  associated, 
and  there  is  always  the  tendency  that,  as  the 
child  becomes  the  woman,  and  as  the  mind 
becomes  more  sophisticated  and  common- 
place, the  phase  will  pass.  The  refining 
process  can  be  observed  in  the  second  series 
of  pictures,  especially  in  the  little  figure 
which  is  holding  out  the  flower.  We  fear 
that  it  has  now  completed  itself,  and  that  we 
shall  have  no  more  demonstrations  of  fairy 
life  from  this  particular  source. 

One  line  of  attack  upon  the  genuine  char- 
acter of  the  photographs  was  the  production 
of  a  fake,  and  the  argument:  "There,  you 
see  how  good  that  is,  and  yet  it  is  an  ad- 
mitted fake.  How  can  you  be  sure  that 
yours  are  not  so  also?"  The  fallacy  of  this 
reasoning  lay  in  the  fact  that  these  imita- 
tions were  done  by  skilled  performers,  while 
the  originals  were  by  untrained  children.  It 
is  a  repetition  of  the  stale  and  rotten  argu- 
ment by  which  the  world  has  been  befooled 
72 


\ 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

SO  long,  that  because  a  conjurer  under  Ms 
own  conditions  can  imitate  certain  effects, 
therefore  the  effects  themselves  never  ex- 
isted. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  these  at- 
tempts were  very  well  done,  though  none  of 
them  passed  the  scrutiny  of  Mr.  Gardner 
or  myself.  The  best  of  them  was  by  a  lady 
photographer  connected  with  the  Bradford 
Institute,  Miss  Ina  Inman,  whose  produc- 
tion was  so  good  that  it  caused  us  for  some 
weeks  to  regard  it  with  an  open  mind. 
There  was  also  a  weird  but  effective  ar- 
rangement by  Judge  Docker,  of  Australia. 
In  the  case  of  Miss  Inman 's  elves,  clever  as 
they  were,  there  was  nothing  of  the  natural 
grace  and  freedom  of  movement  which  char- 
acterize the  wonderful  Cottingley  fairy 
group. 

Among  the  more  remarkable  comments  in 
the  press  was  one  from  Mr.  George  A.  Wade 
in  the  London  Evening  Netus  of  December 
8,  1920.  It  told  of  a  curious  sequence  of 
events  in  Yorkshire,  and  ran  as  follows : 

**Are  there  real  fairies  in  the  land  to-day? 

73 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

The  question  has  been  raised  by  Sir  Arthur 
Conan  Doyle,  and  there  have  been  sub- 
mitted photographs  which  purport  to  be 
those  of  actual  'little  people.' 

*' Experiences  which  have  come  within  my 
own  knowledge  may  help  to  throw  a  little 
light  on  this  question  as  to  whether  there  are 
real  fairies,  actual  elves  and  gnomes,  yet  to 
be  met  with  in  the  dales  of  Yorkshire,  where 
the  photographs  are  asserted  to  have  been 
taken. 

**  Whilst  spending  a  day  last  year  with  my 
friend,  Mr.  Halliwell  Sutcliffe,  the  well- 
known  novelist,  who  lives  in  that  district,  he 
told  me,  to  my  intense  surprise,  that  he  per- 
sonally knew  a  schoolmaster  not  far  from 
his  home  who  had  again  and  again  insisted 
that  he  had  seen,  talked  with,  and  had  played 
with  real  fairies  in  some  meadows  not  far 
away !  The  novelist  mentioned  this  to  me  as 
an  actual  curious  fact,  for  which  he,  him- 
self, had  no  explanation.  But  he  said  that 
the  man  was  one  whose  education,  person- 
ality, and  character  made  him  worthy  of 
credence — a  man  not  likely  to  harbour  a  de- 
lusion or  to  wish  to  deceive  others. 
74 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

"Whilst  in  the  same  district  I  was  in- 
formed by  a  man  whom  I  knew  to  be  thor- 
oughly reliable  that  a  young  lady  living  in 
Skipton  had  mentioned  to  him  more  than 

once  that  she  often  went  up  to (a  spot 

in  the  dales  the  name  of  which  he  gave)  to 
*play  and  dance  with  the  fairies !'  When  he 
expressed  astonishment  at  the  statement  she 
repeated  it,  and  averred  that  it  was  really 
true! 

"In  chatting  about  the  matter  with  my 
friend,  Mr.  William  Riley,  the  author  of 
Windyridge,  NetherleigJi,  and  Jerry  and 
Ben,  a  writer  who  knows  the  Yorkshire 
moors  and  dales  intimately,  Mr.  Riley  as- 
serted that  though  he  had  never  seen  actual 
fairies  there,  yet  he  knew  several  trust- 
worthy moorland  people  whose  belief  in 
them  was  unshakable  and  who  persisted 
against  all  contradiction  that  they  them- 
selves had  many  times  seen  pixies  at  cer- 
tain favoured  spots  in  Upper  Airedale  and 
Wharfedale. 

"When  some  time  later  an  article  of  mine 
anent  these  things  was  published  in  a  York- 
shire newspaper,  there  came  a  letter  from  a 

75 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

lady  at  a  distance  who  stated  that  the  ac- 
count confirmed  a  strange  experience  which 
she  had  when  on  holiday  in  the  same  dale  up 
above  Skipton. 

' '  She  stated  that  one  evening,  when  walk- 
ing alone  on  the  higher  portion  of  a  slope  of 
the  hills,  to  her  intense  astonishment  she 
saw  in  a  meadow  close  below  her  fairies  and 
sprites  playing  and  dancing  in  large  num- 
bers. She  imagined  that  she  must  be  dream- 
ing, or  under  some  hallucination,  so  she 
pinched  herself  and  rubbed  her  eyes  to  make 
sure  that  she  was  really  awake.  Convinced 
of  this,  she  looked  again,  and  still  unmis- 
takably saw  the  'little  people.'  She  gave  a 
full  account  of  how  they  played,  of  the  long 
time  she  watched  them,  and  how  at  length 
they  vanished.  Without  a  doubt  she  was 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  her  statement. 

"What  can  we  make  of  it  all?  My  own 
mind  is  open,  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
so  many  persons,  unknown  to  one  another, 
should  have  conspired  to  state  what  is  false. 
It  is  a  remarkable  coincidence,  if  nothing 
more,  that  the  girls  in  Sir  Arthur  Conan 
Doyle's  account,  the  schoolmaster  mentioned 
76 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

by  Mr.  Sutcliffe,  the  young  woman  who 
came  from  Skipton,  and  the  lady  who  wrote 
to  the  Yorkshire  newspaper  should  all  put 
the  spot  where  the  fairies  are  to  be  seen 
almost  within  a  mile  or  two  of  one  another. 
''Are  there  real  fairies  to  be  met  with 
there  r' 

The  most  severe  attack  upon  the  fairy 
pictures  seems  to  have  been  that  of  Major 
Hall-Edwards,  the  famous  authority  upon 
radimn,  in  the  Birmingham  Weekly/  Post. 
He  said: 

"Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  takes  it  for 
granted  that  these  photographs  are  real  pho- 
tographs of  fairies,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  no  evidence  has  so  far  been  put  forward 
to  show  exactly  how  they  were  produced. 
Anyone  who  has  studied  the  extraordinary 
effects  which  have  from  time  to  time  been 
obtained  by  cinema  operators  must  be  aware 
that  it  is  possible,  given  time  and  opportu- 
nity, to  produce  by  means  of  faked  photo- 
graphs almost  anything  that  can  be  imag- 
ined. 

77 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

"It  is  well  to  point  out  that  the  elder  of 
the  two  girls  has  been  described  by  her 
mother  as  a  most  imaginative  child,  who  has 
been  in  the  habit  of  drawing  fairies  for 
years,  and  who  for  a  time  was  apprenticed 
to  a  firm  of  photographers.  In  addition  to 
this  she  has  access  to  some  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful dales  and  valleys,  where  the  imagina- 
tion of  a  young  person  is  easily  quickened. 

''One  of  the  pictures  represents  the 
younger  child  leaning  on  her  elbow  upon  a 
bank,  while  a  number  of  fairies  are  shown 
dancing  around  her.  The  child  does  not 
look  at  the  fairies,  but  is  posing  for  the  pho- 
tograph in  the  ordinary  way.  The  reason 
given  for  her  apparent  disinterestedness  in 
the  frolicsome  elves  is  that  she  is  used  to  the 
fairies,  and  was  merely  interested  in  the 
camera. 

**The  picture  in  question  could  be  'faked' 
in  two  ways.  Either  the  little  figures  of  the 
fairies  were  stuck  upon  a  cardboard,  cut  out 
and  placed  close  to  the  sitter,  when,  of 
course,  she  would  not  be  able  to  see  them, 
and  the  whole  photograph  produced  on  a 
marked  plate;  or  the  original  photograph, 
78 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    FIRST    PHOTOGRAPHS 

without  'fairies,'  may  have  had  stuck  on  it 
the  figures  of  fairies  cut  from  some  publica- 
tion. This  would  then  be  rephotographed, 
and,  if  well  done,  no  photographer  could 
swear  that  the  second  negative  was  not  the 
original  one. 

** Major  Hall-Edwards  went  on  to  remark 
that  great  weight  had  been  placed  upon  the 
fact  that  the  fairies  in  the  photograph  had 
transparent  wings,  but  that  a  tricky  pho- 
tographer could  very  easily  reproduce  such 
an  effect. 

''  *It  is  quite  possible,'  he  observed,  Ho 
cut  off  the  transparent  wings  of  insects  and 
paste  them  on  a  picture  of  fairies.  It  is  easy 
to  add  the  transparent  wings  of  large  flies 
and  so  arrange  them  that  portions  of  the 
photograph  can  be  viewed  through  the 
wings  and  thus  obtain  a  very  realistic 
effect. ' 

*'It  has  been  pointed  out  that  although 
the  *  fairies'  are  represented  as  if  they  were 
dancing — in  fact  they  are  definitely  stated 
to  be  dancing — there  is  no  evidence  of  move- 
ment in  the  photographs.  An  explanation 
of  this  has  been  given  by  the  photographer 

79 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

herself,  who  has  told  us  that  the  movements 
of  the  fairies  are  exceedingly  slow  and 
might  be  compared  to  the  retarded-move- 
ment films  shown  in  the  cinemas.  This 
proves  that  the  young  lady  i^ossesses  a  very 
considerable  knowledge  of  photography. 

"Millions  of  photographs  have  been 
taken  by  operators  of  different  ages — chil- 
dren and  grown-ups — of  country  scenes  and 
places  which,  we  have  been  taught,  are  the 
habitats  of  nymphs  and  elves ;  yet  until  the 
arrival  upon  the  scene  of  these  two  won- 
derful children  the  image  of  a  fairy  has 
never  been  produced  on  a  photographic 
plate.  On  the  evidence  I  have  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  these  photographs  could  have 
been  'faked.'  I  criticize  the  attitude  of 
those  who  declared  there  is  something  super- 
natural in  the  circumstances  attending  the 
taking  of  these  pictures  because,  as  a  medi- 
cal man,  I  believe  that  the  inculcation  of 
such  absurd  ideas  into  the  minds  of  children 
will  result  in  later  life  in  manifestations  of 
nervous  disorder  and  mental  disturbances. 
Surely  young  children  can  be  brought  up  to 
appreciate  the  beauties  of  Nature  without 
80 


n.     r.viRY  OKI  roRiNf;  posy  of  iiauk  r.i:i.i.s  to  ki.sie 

The   fairy   is  standing  almost   still,    poised  on   tlie   busli   leaves.      The    wings 
are   shot   with   yellow,    and    upper   part    of    dress   is   very    pale   pink. 


r' 


i:. 


1>AI1!II;S    AM)    Til  Kin    SIN-KATII 


This  contains  a  feature  that  was  (|iiit<'  \nikno\\n  tci  the  sirls.  The  sheath 
or  cocoon  aiipearins-  in  the  midst  ol'  the  glasses  liaii  never  been  seen  hy 
tlieni  l)el"()re.  and  they  liad  no  idea  wliat  it  was.  l<\iiry  lovers  and  observers 
descrll)e  it  as  a  magnetic  l)ath.  woven  very  quicl^ly  liy  tile  fairies,  and 
used    after   didl    weailier    and    in    the    antunin    esi)ecially. 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

their  imagination  being  filled  with  exagger- 
ated, if  picturesque,  nonsense  and  misplaced 
sentiment. ' ' 

To  this  Mr.  Gardner  answered : 

** Major  Hall-Edwards  says  *no  evidence 
has  been  put  forward  to  show  how  they  were 
produced.'  The  least  a  would-be  critic 
should  do  is  surely  to  read  the  report  of  the 
case.  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle  is  asserted  to  have 
taken  it  'for  granted  that  these  photographs 
are  real  and  genuine.'  It  would  be  difficult 
to  misrepresent  the  case  more  completely. 
The  negatives  and  contact  prints  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  most  searching  tests  known  to 
photographic  science  by  experts,  many  of 
whom  were  frankly  sceptical.  They  emerged 
as  being  unquestionably  single-exposure 
plates  and,  further,  as  bearing  no  evidence 
whatever  in  themselves  of  any  trace  of  the 
innumerable  faking  devices  known.  This 
did  not  clear  them  entirely,  for,  as  I  have 
always  remarked  in  my  description  of  the 
investigation,  it  is  held  possible  by  employ- 
ing highly  artistic  and  skilled  processes  to 
produce  similar  negatives.     Personally,  I 

81 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

should  very  mucli  like  to  see  this  attempted 
seriously.  The  few  that  have  been  done, 
though  very  much  better  than  the  crude  ex- 
amples Major  Hall-Edwards  submits,  break 
down  hopelessly  on  simple  analysis. 

' '  The  case  resolved  itself  at  an  early  stage 
into  the  examination  of  the  personal  element 
and  the  motive  for  faked  work.  It  was  this 
that  occupied  us  so  strenuously,  for  we  fully 
realized  the  imperative  need  of  overwhelm- 
ingly satisfying  proof  of  personal  integrity 
before  accepting  the  photographs  as  genu- 
ine. This  was  carried  through,  and  its  thor- 
oughness may  be  estimated  by  the  fact  that, 
notwithstanding  the  searching  nature  of  the 
investigation  that  has  followed  the  publica- 
tion of  the  village,  names,  etc.,  nothing  even 
modifies  my  first  report.  I  need  hardly  point 
out  that  the  strength  of  the  case  lies  in  its 
amazing  simplicity  and  the  integrity  of  the 
family  concerned.  It  is  on  the  photographic 
plus  the  personal  evidence  that  the  case 
stands. 

*^Into  part  of  the  criticism  advanced  by 
Major  Hall-Edwards  it  will  be  kinder,  per- 
haps, not  to  enter.  Seriously  to  suggest  that 
82 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    FIRST    PHOTOGRAPHS 

a  visit  to  a  cinema  show  and  the  use  of  an 
apt  illustration  implies  *a  very  considerable 
knowledge  of  i)hotography'  is  on  a  par  with 
the  supposition  that  to  be  employed  as  an 
errand  girl  and  help  in  a  shop  indicates  a 
high  degree  of  skill  in  that  profession !  We 
are  not  quite  so  credulous  as  that,  nor  were 
we  able  to  believe  that  two  children,  alone 
and  unaided,  could  produce  in  half  an  hour 
a  faked  photograph  of  the  type  of  'Alice  and 
the  Fairies.'  " 

In  addition  to  this  criticism  by  Major 
Hall-Edwards  there  came  an  attack  in  John 
o*  London  from  the  distinguished  writer 
Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett,  who  raises  some  ob- 
jections which  were  answered  in  Mr.  Gard- 
ner's subsequent  reply.  Mr.  Hewlett's  con- 
tention was  as  follows: 

*'The  stage  which  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle 
has  reached  at  present  is  one  of  belief  in 
the  genuineness  of  what  one  may  call  the 
Carpenter  photographs,  which  showed  the 
other  day  to  the  readers  of  the  Strand 
Magazine  two  ordinary  girls  in  familiar  in- 

83 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

tercourse  with  winged  beings,  as  near  as  I 
can  judge,  about  eighteen  inches  high.  If  he 
believes  in  the  photographs  two  inferences 
can  be  made,  so  to  speak,  to  stand  up :  one, 
that  he  must  believe  also  in  the  existence  of 
the  beings;  two,  that  a  mechanical  opera- 
tion, where  human  agency  has  done  nothing 
but  prepare  a  plate,  focus  an  object,  press  a 
button,  and  print  a  picture,  has  rendered 
visible  something  which  is  not  otherwise 
visible  to  the  common  naked  eye.  That  is 
really  all  Sir  Arthur  has  to  tell  us.  He  be- 
lieves the  photographs  to  be  genuine.  The 
rest  follows.  But  why  does  he  believe  it? 
Because  the  young  ladies  tell  him  that  they 
are  genuine.    Alas! 

**Sir  Arthur  cannot,  he  tells  us,  go  into 
Yorkshire  himself  to  cross-examine  the 
young  ladies,  even  if  he  wishes  to  cross- 
examine  them,  which  does  not  appear.  How- 
ever, he  sends  in  his  place  a  friend,  Mr.  E.  L. 
Gardner,  also  of  hospitable  mind,  with  set- 
tled opinions  upon  theosophy  and  kindred 
subjects,  but  deficient,  it  would  seem,  in 
logical  faculty.  Mr.  Gardner  has  himself 
photographed  in  the  place  where  the  young 
84 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

ladies  photographed  each  other,  or  there- 
abouts. No  winged  beings  circled  about  him, 
and  one  wonders  why  Mr.  Gardner  (a)  was 
photographed,  (h)  reproduced  the  photo- 
graph in  the  Strand  Magazine. 

' '  The  only  answer  I  can  find  is  suggested 
to  me  by  the  appearance  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  to  certain  shepherds  in  a  peach-or- 
chard at  Verona.  The  shepherds  told  their 
parish  priest  that  the  Virgin  Mary  had  in- 
deed appeared  to  them  on  a  moonlit  night, 
had  accepted  a  bowl  of  milk  from  them,  had 
then  picked  a  peach  from  one  of  the  trees 
and  eaten  it.  The  priest  visited  the  spot  in 
their  company,  and  in  due  course  picked  up 
a  peach-stone.  That  settled  it.  Obviously 
the  Madonna  had  been  really  there,  for  here 
was  the  peach-stone  to  prove  it. 

**I  am  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  Mr. 
Gardner  had  himself  photographed  on  a 
particular  spot  in  order  to  prove  the  genu- 
ineness of  former  photographs  taken  there. 
The  argument  would  run :  The  photographs 
were  taken  on  a  certain  spot;  but  I  have 
been  myself  photographed  on  that  spot; 
therefore   the   photographs  were   genuine. 

85 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

There  is  a  fallacy  lurking,  but  it  is  a  hos- 
pitable fallacy;  and  luckily  it  doesn't  very 
much  matter. 

*'The  line  to  take  about  a  question  of  the 
sort  is  undoubtedly  that  of  least  resistance. 
Which  is  the  harder  of  belief,  the  faking  of 
a  photograph  or  the  objective  existence  of 
winged  beings  eighteen  inches  high?  Un- 
doubtedly, to  a  plain  man,  the  latter;  but 
assume  the  former.  If  such  beings  exist,  if 
they  are  occasionally  visible,  and  if  a  camera 
is  capable  of  revealing  to  all  the  world  what 
is  hidden  from  most  people  in  it,  we  are  not 
yet  able  to  say  that  the  Carpenter  photo- 
graphs are  photograj^hs  of  such  beings. 
For  we,  observe,  have  not  seen  such  beings. 
True:  but  we  have  all  seen  photographs  of 
beings  in  rapid  motion — horses  racing, 
greyhounds  coursing  a  hare,  men  running 
over  a  field,  and  so  on.  We  have  seen  pic- 
tures of  these  things,  and  we  have  seen  pho- 
tographs of  them ;  and  the  odd  thing  is  that 
never,  never  by  any  chance  does  the  photo- 
grai3h  of  a  running  object  in  the  least  re- 
semble a  picture  of  it. 

**The  horse,  dog,  or  man,  in  fact,  in  the 
86 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

photograph  does  not  look  to  be  in  motion  at 
all.  And  rightly  so,  because  in  the  instant 
of  being  photographed  it  was  not  in  motion. 
So  infinitely  rapid  is  the  action  of  light  on 
the  plate  that  it  is  possible  to  isolate  a  frac- 
tion of  time  in  a  rapid  flight  and  to  record  it. 
Directly  you  combine  a  series  of  photo- 
graphs in  sequence,  and  set  them  moving, 
you  have  a  semblance  of  motion  exactly  like 
that  which  you  have  in  a  picture. 

**Now,  the  beings  circling  round  a  girl's 
head  and  shoulders  in  the  Carpenter  photo- 
graph are  in  picture  flighty  and  not  in  pho- 
tographic flight.  That  is  certain.  They  are 
in  the  approved  pictorial,  or  plastic,  con- 
vention of  dancing.  They  are  not  well  ren- 
dered by  any  means.  They  are  stiff  com- 
pared with,  let  us  say,  the  whirling  gnomes 
on  the  outside  wrapper  of  Punch.  They 
have  very  little  of  the  wild,  irresponsible 
vagary  of  a  butterfly.  But  they  are  an  at- 
tempt to  render  an  aerial  dance — pretty 
enough  in  a  small  way.  The  photographs 
are  too  small  to  enable  me  to  decide  whether 
they  are  painted  on  cardboard  or  modelled 
in  the  round ;  hut  the  figures  are  not  moving. 

87 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

*'One  other  point,  which  may  be  called  a 
small  one — but  in  a  matter  of  the  sort  no 
point  is  a  small  one.  I  regard  it  as  a  cer- 
tainty, as  the  other  plainly  is.  If  the 
dancing  figures  had  been  dancing  beings, 
really  there,  the  child  in  the  photograph 
would  have  been  looking  at  them,  not  at  the 
camera.    I  know  children. 

*'And  knowing  children,  and  knowing 
that  Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  has  legs,  I  de- 
cide that  the  Miss  Carpenters  have  pulled 
one  of  them.  Meantime  I  suggest  to  him 
that  epochs  are  born,  not  made." 

To  which  Mr.  Gardner  replied  in  the  fol- 
lowing issue  : 

*'I  could  have  wished  that  Mr.  Maurice 
Hewlett 's  somewhat  playful  criticism  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  photographs  of  fairies 
appearing  in  the  Strand  Magazine  Christ- 
mas number  had  been  more  clearly  defined. 
The  only  serious  point  raised  is  the  differ- 
ence between  photographic  and  pictorial 
representation  of  motion — Mr.  Hewlett 
maintaining  that  the  latter  is  in  evidence 
in  the  photographs. 
88 


RECEPTION    OF    THE    FIRST   PHOTOGRAPHS 

**  With  regard  to  the  separate  photographs 
of  the  sites,  surely  the  reason  for  their  in- 
clusion is  obvious.  Photographic  experts 
had  stated  that  though  the  two  negatives  re- 
vealed no  trace  of  any  faking  process  (such 
as  double  exposure,  painted  figures  on  en- 
largements rephotographed,  set-up  models 
in  card  or  other  material) ,  still  it  could  not 
be  held  to  be  impossible  to  obtain  the  same 
class  of  result  by  very  clever  studio  work. 
Also,  certain  points  that  needed  elucidation 
were  the  haze  above  and  at  the  side  of  the 
child's  head,  and  the  blurred  appearance  of 
the  waterfall  as  compared  with  the  clarity  of 
the  figures,  etc.  An  inspection  of  the  spots 
and  photographs  of  their  surroundings  was 
surely  the  only  way  to  clear  up  some  of 
these.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  waterfall 
proved  to  be  about  twenty  feet  behind  the 
child,  and  hence  out  of  focus,  and  some  large 
rocks  at  the  same  distance  in  the  rear,  at 
the  side  of  the  fall,  were  found  to  be  the 
cause  of  the  haziness.  The  separate  photo- 
graphs, of  which  only  one  is  published  of 
each  place,  confirm  entirely  the  genuineness 

89 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

of  the  sites — not  the  genuineness  of  the 
fairies. 

''In  commenting  on  the  photography  of  a 
moving  object,  Mr.  Hewlett  makes  the  as- 
tonishing statement  that  at  the  instant  of 
being  photographed  it  is  not  in  motion 
(Mr.  H.  's  italics) .  I  wonder  when  it  is,  and 
what  would  happen  if  a  camera  was  ex- 
posed then!  Of  course  the  moving  object  is 
in  motion  during  exposure,  no  matter 
whether  the  time  be  a  fiftieth  or  a  millionth 
part  of  a  second,  though  Mr.  Hewlett  is  by 
no  means  the  only  one  to  fall  into  this  error. 
And  each  of  the  fairy  figures  in  the  negative 
discloses  signs  of  movement.  This  was  one 
of  the  first  points  determined. 

''I  admit  at  once,  of  course,  that  this  does 
not  meet  the  criticism  that  the  fairies  dis- 
play much  more  grace  in  action  than  is  to 
be  found  in  the  ordinary  snapshot  of  a  mov- 
ing horse  or  man.  But  if  we  are  here  deal- 
ing with  fairies  whose  bodies  must  be  pre- 
sumed to  be  of  a  purely  ethereal  and  plastic 
nature,  and  not  with  skeleton-framed  mam- 
mals at  all,  is  it  such  a  very  illogical  mind 
that  accepts  the  exquisite  grace  therein 
90 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  FIRST  PHOTOGRAPHS 

found  as  a  natural  quality  that  is  never  ab- 
sent? In  view  of  the  overwhelming  evi- 
dence of  genuineness  now  in  hand  this  seems 
to  be  the  truth. 

**With  regard  to  the  last  query  raised — 
the  child  looking  at  the  camera  instead  of  at 
the  fairies — Alice  was  entirely  unsophisti- 
cated respecting  the  proper  photographic 
attitude.  For  her,  cameras  were  much  more 
novel  than  fairies,  and  never  before  had  she 
seen  one  used  so  close  to  her.  Strange  to  us 
as  it  may  seem,  at  the  moment  it  interested 
her  the  most.  Apropos,  would  a  faker, 
clever  enough  to  produce  such  a  photograph, 
commit  the  elementary  blunder  of  not  pos- 
ing his  subject?" 

Among  other  interesting  and  weighty 
opinions,  which  were  in  general  agreement 
with  our  contentions,  was  one  by  Mr.  H.  A. 
Staddon  of  Goodmayes,  a  gentleman  who 
had  made  a  particular  hobby  of  fakes  in  pho- 
tography. His  report  is  too  long  and  too 
technical  for  inclusion,  but,  under  the  vari- 
ous headings  of  composition,  dress,  develop- 
ment, density,  lighting,  poise,  texture,  plate, 
atmosphere,  focus,  halation,  he  goes  very 

91 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

completely  into  the  evidence,  coming  to  the 
final  conclusion  that  when  tried  by  all  these 
tests  the  chances  are  not  less  than  80  per 
cent,  in  favour  of  authenticity. 

It  may  be  added  that  in  the  course  of  ex- 
hibiting these  photographs  (in  the  interests 
of  the  Theosophical  bodies  with  which  Mr. 
Gardner  is  connected),  it  has  sometimes  oc- 
curred that  the  plates  have  been  enormously 
magnified  upon  the  screen.  In  one  instance, 
at  Wakefield,  the  powerful  lantern  used 
threw  an  exceptionally  large  picture  on  a 
huge  sheet.  The  operator,  a  very  intelligent 
man  who  had  taken  a  sceptical  attitude,  was 
entirely  converted  to  the  truth  of  the  photo- 
graphs, for,  as  he  pointed  out,  such  an  en- 
largement would  show  the  least  trace  of  a 
scissors  irregularity  or  of  any  artificial  de- 
tail, and  would  make  it  absurd  to  suppose 
that  a  dummy  figure  could  remain  unde- 
tected. The  lines  were  always  beautifully 
fine  and  unbroken. 


92 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  SECOND   SERIES 

When  Mr.  Gardner  was  in  Yorkshire  in 
July,  he  left  a  good  camera  with  Elsie,  for 
he  learned  that  her  cousin  Frances  was 
about  to  visit  her  again  and  that  there  would 
be  a  chance  of  more  photographs.  One  of 
our  difficulties  has  been  that  the  associated 
aura  of  the  two  girls  is  needful.  This  join- 
ing of  auras  to  produce  a  stronger  effect 
than  either  can  get  singly  is  common  enough 
in  psychic  matters.  We  wished  to  make  full 
use  of  the  combined  power  of  the  girls  in 
August.  My  last  words  to  Mr.  Gardner, 
therefore,  before  starting  for  Australia 
were  that  I  should  open  no  letter  more 
eagerly  than  that  which  would  tell  me  the 
result  of  our  new  venture.  In  my  heart  I 
hardly  expected  success,  for  three  years  had 
passed,  and  I  was  well  aware  that  the  proc- 
esses of  puberty  a^  often  fatal  to  psychic 
power. 

93 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

I  was  surprised,  therefore,  as  well  as  de- 
lighted, when  I  had  his  letter  at  Melbourne, 
informing  me  of  complete  success  and  en- 
closing three  more  wonderful  prints,  all 
taken  in  the  fairy  glen.  Any  doubts  which 
had  remained  in  my  mind  as  to  honesty  were 
completely  overcome,  for  it  was  clear  that 
these  pictures,  specially  the  one  of  the  fairies 
in  the  bush,  were  altogether  beyond  the  pos- 
sibility of  fake.  Even  now,  however,  hav- 
ing a  wide  experience  of  transference  of 
l^ictures  in  psychic  photography  and  the 
effect  of  thought  upon  ectoplasmic  images, 
I  feel  that  there  is  a  possible  alternative  ex- 
planation in  this  direction,  and  I  have  never 
quite  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  is  a  curious 
coincidence  that  so  unique  an  event  should 
have  happened  in  a  family  some  members  of 
which  were  already  inclined  to  occult  study, 
and  might  be  imagined  to  have  formed 
thought-pictures  of  occult  appearances. 
Such  suppositions,  though  not  to  be  entirely 
dismissed,  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  far-fetched 
and  remote. 

Here  is  the  joyous  letter  which  reached  me 
at  Melbourne : 
94 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

September  6,  1920. 

My  dear  Doyle, 

Greetings  and  best  wishes  I  Your  last 
words  to  me  before  we  parted  were  that  you 
would  open  my  letter  with  the  greatest  in- 
terest. You  will  not  be  disappointed — for 
the  wonderful  thing  has  happened ! 

I  have  received  from  Elsie  three  more 
negatives  taken  a  few  days  back.  I  need  not 
describe  them,  for  enclosed  are  the  three 
prints  in  a  separate  envelope.  The  '^Flying 
Fairy '^  and  the  ''Fairies'  Bower"  are  the 
most  amazing  that  any  modern  eye  has  ever 
seen  surely !  I  received  these  plates  on  Fri- 
day morning  last  and  have  since  been  think- 
ing furiously. 

A  nice  little  letter  came  with  them  saying 
how  sorry  they  were  (!)  that  they  couldn't 
send  more,  but  the  weather  had  been  bad 
(it  has  been  abominably  cold),  and  on  only 
two  afternoons  had  Elsie  and  Frances  been 
able  to  visit  the  glen.  (Frances  has  now  re- 
turned to  Scarborough  at  the  call  of  school.) 
All  quite  simple  and  straightforward  and 
concluding  with  the  hope  that  I  might  be 

95 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

able  to  spend  another  day  with  them  at  the 
end  of  this  month. 

I  went  over  to  Harrow  at  once,  and  Snell- 
ing  without  hesitation  pronounced  the  three 
as  bearing  the  same  proofs  of  genuineness 
as  the  first  two,  declaring  further  that  at  any 
rate  the  "bower"  one  was  utterly  beyond 
any  possibility  of  faking!  While  on  this 
point  I  might  add  that  to-day  I  have  inter- 
viewed lUingworth's  people  and  somewhat 
to  my  surprise  they  endorsed  this  view. 
(Now  if  you  have  not  yet  opened  the  en- 
velope please  do  so  and  I  will  continue  .  .  .) 

I  am  going  to  Yorkshire  on  the  23rd  inst. 
to  fill  some  lecture  engagements  and  shall 
spend  a  day  at  C,  and  of  course  take  photos 
of  these  spots  and  examine  and  take  away 
any  "spoilt"  negatives  that  will  serve  as 
useful  accompaniments.  The  bower  nega- 
tive, by  the  way,  the  girls  simply  could  not 
understand  at  all.  They  saw  the  sedate- 
looking  fairy  to  the  right,  and  without  wait- 
ing to  get  in  the  picture  Elsie  pushed  the 
camera  close  up  to  the  tall  grasses  and  took 
the  snap.  .  .  . 
96 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

To  this  letter  I  made  answer  as  follows: 

Melbourne, 

October  21, 1920. 

Deak  Gardnee, 

My  heart  was  gladdened  when  out 
here  in  far  Australia  I  had  your  note  and 
the  three  wonderful  prints  which  are  con- 
firmatory of  our  published  results.  You  and 
I  needed  no  confirmation,  but  the  whole  line 
of  thought  will  be  so  novel  to  the  ordinary 
busy  man  who  has  not  followed  psychic  in- 
quiry, that  he  will  need  that  it  be  repeated 
again  and  yet  again  before  he  realizes  that 
this  new  order  of  life  is  really  established 
and  has  to  be  taken  into  serious  account,  just 
as  the  pigmies  of  Central  Africa. 

I  felt  guilty  when  I  laid  a  delay-action 
mine  and  left  the  country,  leaving  you  to 
face  the  consequences  of  the  explosion. 
You  knew,  however,  that  it  was  unavoidable. 
I  rejoice  now  that  you  should  have  this  com- 
plete shield  against  those  attacks  which  will 
very  likely  take  the  form  of  a  clamour  for 
further  pictures,  unaware  that  such  pictures 
actually  exist. 

97 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

The  matter  does  not  bear  directly  upon 
the  more  vital  question  of  our  own  fate  and 
that  of  those  we  have  lost,  which  has  brought 
me  out  here.  But  anything  which  extends 
man's  mental  horizon,  and  proves  to  him 
that  matter  as  we  have  known  it  is  not  really 
the  limit  of  our  universe,  must  have  a  good 
effect  in  breaking  down  materialism  and 
leading  human  thought  to  a  broader  and 
more  spiritual  level. 

It  almost  seems  to  me  that  those  wise  en- 
tities who  are  conducting  this  campaign 
from  the  other  side,  and  using  some  of  us  as 
humble  instruments,  have  recoiled  before 
that  sullen  stupidity  against  which  Goethe 
said  the  gods  themselves  fight  in  vain,  and 
have  opened  up  an  entirely  new  line  of  ad- 
vance, which  will  turn  that  so-called  *' reli- 
gious," and  essentially  irreligious,  position, 
which  has  helped  to  bar  our  way.  They 
can't  destroy  fairies  by  antediluvian  texts, 
and  when  once  fairies  are  admitted  other 
psychic  phenomena  will  find  a  more  ready 
acceptance. 

Good-bye,  my  dear  Gardner,  I  am  proud 
to  have  been  associated  with  you  in  this 
98 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

epoch-making  incident.  We  have  had  con- 
tinued messages  at  seances  for  some  time 
that  a  visible  sign  was  coming  through — and 
perhaps  this  was  what  is  meant.  The  hmnan 
race  does  not  deserve  fresh  evidence,  since 
it  has  not  troubled,  as  a  rule,  to  examine  that 
which  already  exists.  However,  our  friends 
beyond  are  very  long-suffering  and  more 
charitable  than  I,  for  I  will  confess  that  my 
soul  is  filled  with  a  cold  contempt  for  the 
muddle-headed  indifference  and  the  moral 
cowardice  which  I  see  around  me. 
Yours  sincerely, 

Aethur  Conan  Doyle. 

The  next  letters  from  Mr.  Gardner  told 
me  that  in  September,  immediately  after 
this  second  series  was  taken,  he  had  gone 
north  again,  and  came  away  more  convinced 
than  ever  of  the  honesty  of  the  whole  Wright 
family  and  of  the  genuine  nature  of  the  pho- 
tographs. From  this  letter  I  take  the  fol- 
lowing extracts: 

*^My  visit  to  Yorkshire  was  very  profit- 
able.   I  spent  the  whole  day  with  the  family 

99 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

and  took  photographs  of  the  new  sites, 
which  proved  to  be  in  close  proximity  to  the 
others.  I  enclose  a  few  prints  of  these.  It 
was  beside  the  pond  shown  that  the  'cradle' 
or  bower  photograph  was  taken.  The  fairy 
that  is  in  the  air  was  leaping  rather  than 
flying.  It  had  leapt  up  from  the  bush  below 
five  or  six  times,  Elsie  said,  and  seemed  to 
hover  at  the  top  of  its  spring.  It  was 
about  the  fifth  time  that  it  did  so  that  she 
snapped  the  shutter.  Unfortunately,  Fran- 
ces thought  the  fairy  was  leaping  on  to  her 
face,  the  action  was  so  vigorous,  and  tossed 
her  head  back.  The  motion  can  be  detected 
in  the  print.  The  fairy  who  is  looking  at 
Elsie  in  the  other  photograph  is  holding  a 
bunch  of  fairy  hare-bells.  I  thought  this 
one  had  'bobbed'  hair  and  was  altogether 
quite  in  the  fashion,  her  dress  is  so  up-to- 
date!  But  Elsie  says  her  hair  was  close- 
curled,  not  bobbed.  With  regard  to  the 
'cradle'  Elsie  tells  me  they  both  saw  the 
fairy  on  the  right  and  the  demure-looking 
sprite  on  the  left,  but  not  the  bower.  Or 
rather,  she  says  there  was  only  a  wreath  of 
faint  mist  in  between  and  she  could  make 
100 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

nothing  of  it.  We  have  now  succeeded  in 
bringing  this  print  out  splendidly,  and  as  I 
can  get  certificates  from  experts  giving  the 
opinion  that  this  negative  could  not  possibly 
be  'faked'  we  seem  to  be  on  perfectly  safe 
ground.  The  exposure  times  in  each  case 
were  one-fiftieth  of  a  second,  the  distance 
about  three  to  four  feet,  the  camera  was 
the  selected  'Cameo'  that  I  had  sent  to  Elsie, 
and  the  plates  were  of  those  that  I  had  sent 
too. 

"The  colours  of  dresses  and  wings,  etc.,  I 
have  complete,  but  will  post  these  particu- 
lars on  when  writing  at  length  a  little  later 
and  have  the  above  more  fully  written 
out."  .  .  . 

November  27, 1920. 

"The  photographs: 

"When  I  was  in  Yorkshire  in  September 
investigating  the  second  series,  I  took  pho- 
tos of  the  spots,  of  course,  and  the  full  ac- 
count of  the  success.  The  children  only  had 
two  brief  hours  or  so  of  decent  sunshine 
during  the  whole  of  that  fortnight  they  were 
together  in  August.    On  the  Thursday  they 

101 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

took  two  and  on  the  Saturday  one.  If  it  had 
been  normal  weather  we  might  have  ob- 
tained a  score  or  more.  Possibly,  however, 
it  is  better  to  go  slowly — though  I  propose 
we  take  the  matter  further  again  in  May  or 
June.  The  camera  I  had  sent  was  the  one 
used,  and  also  the  plates  (which  had  all  been 
marked  privately  by  the  Illingworth  Co., 
independently  of  me).  The  three  new  fairy 
negatives  proved  to  be  of  these  and  can  be 
certified  so  to  be  by  the  manager.  The 
Cradle  or  Bower  negative  is,  as  I  think  I 
told  you,  declared  to  be  utterly  unfakeable, 
and  I  can  get  statements  to  this  effect.  .  .  ." 

In  a  subsequent  fuller  account  Mr.  Gard- 
ner says : 

**0n  Thursday  afternoon,  August  26,  a 
fairly  bright  and  sunny  day,  fortunately 
(for  the  unseasonably  cold  weather  experi- 
enced generally  could  hardly  have  been 
worse  for  the  task),  a  number  of  photo- 
graphs were  taken,  and  again  on  Saturday, 
August  28.  The  three  reproduced  here  are 
the  most  striking  and  amazing  of  the  num- 
ber. I  only  wish  every  reader  could  see  the 
102 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

superlatively  beautiful  enlargements  made 
directly  from  the  actual  negatives.  The  ex- 
quisite grace  of  the  flying  fairy  baffles  de- 
scription— all  fairies,  indeed,  seem  to  be 
super-Pavlovas  in  miniature.  The  next,  of 
the  fairy  offering  a  flower — an  ether ic  hare- 
bell— to  Iris,  is  a  model  of  gentle  and  digni- 
fied pose,  but  it  is  to  the  third  that  I  would 
draw  special  and  detailed  attention.  Never 
before,  or  otherwhere,  surely,  has  a  fairy's 
bower  been  photographed! 

**The  central  ethereal  cocoon  shape,  some- 
thing between  a  cocoon  and  an  open  chrysa- 
lis in  appearance,  lightly  sus23ended  amid 
the  grasses,  is  the  bower  or  cradle.  Seated 
on  the  upper  left-hand  edge  with  wing  well 
displayed  is  an  undraped  fairy  apparently 
considering  whether  it  is  time  to  get  up.  An 
earlier  riser  of  more  mature  age  is  seen  on 
the  right  possessing  abundant  hair  and  won- 
derful wings.  Her  slightly  denser  body 
can  be  glimpsed  within  her  fairy  dress. 
Just  beyond,  still  on  the  right,  is  the  clear- 
cut  head  of  a  mischievous  but  smiling  elf 
wearing  a  close-fitting  cap.  On  the  extreme 
left  is  a  demure-looking  sprite,  with  a  pair 

103 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

of  very  diaphanous  wings,  while  just  above, 
rather  badly  out  of  focus,  however,  is  an- 
other with  wings  still  widely  extended,  and 
with  outspread  arms,  apparently  just  alight- 
ing on  the  grass  tops.  The  face  in  half  pro- 
file can  just  be  traced  in  a  very  clear  and 
carefully  toned  print  that  I  have.  Alto- 
gether, perhaps,  this  of  the  bower  is  the 
most  astonishing  and  interesting  of  the  more 
successful  photographs,  though  some  may 
prefer  the  marvellous  grace  of  the  flying 
figure. 

*'The  comparative  lack  of  definition  in 
this  photograph  is  probably  accounted  for 
by  the  absence  of  the  much  denser  human 
element.  To  introduce  us  in  this  way 
directly  to  a  charming  bower  of  the  fairies 
was  quite  an  unexpected  result  on  the  part 
of  the  girls,  by  the  way.  They  saw  the  some- 
what sedate  fairy  on  the  right  in  the  long 
grasses,  and,  making  no  attempt  this  time  to 
get  in  the  picture  themselves.  Iris  put  the 
camera  very  close  up  and  obtained  the  snap. 
It  was  simply  good  fortune  that  the  bower 
was  close  by.  In  showing  me  the  negative, 
104 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

Iris  only  remarked  it  as  being  a  quaint  little 
picture  that  she  could  not  make  out!" 

There  the  matter  stands,  and  nothing  has 
occurred  from  that  time  onwards  to  shake 
the  validity  of  the  photographs.  We  were 
naturally  desirous  of  obtaining  more,  and  in 
August  1921  the  girls  were  brought  together 
once  again,  and  the  very  best  photographic 
equipment,  including  a  stereoscopic  camera 
and  a  cinema  camera,  were  placed  at  their 
disposal.  The  Fates,  however,  were  most 
imkind,  and  a  combination  of  circumstances 
stood  in  the  way  of  success.  There  was 
only  a  fortnight  during  which  Frances  could 
be  at  Cottingley,  and  it  was  a  fortnight  of 
almost  incessant  rain,  the  long  drought 
breaking  at  the  end  of  July  in  Yorkshire. 
In  addition,  a  small  seam  of  coal  had  been 
found  in  the  Fairy  Glen,  and  it  had  been 
greatly  polluted  by  human  magnetism. 
These  conditions  might  perhaps  have  been 
overcome,  but  the  chief  impediment  of  all 
was  the  change  in  the  girls,  the  one  through 
womanhood  and  the  other  through  board- 
school  education. 

105 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

There  was  one  development,  however, 
which  is  worth  recording.  Although  they 
were  unable  to  materialize  the  images  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  catch  them  upon  a  plate, 
the  girls  had  not  lost  their  clairvoyant 
powers,  and  were  able,  as  of  old,  to  see  the 
sprites  and  elves  which  still  abounded  in  the 
glen.  The  sceptic  will  naturally  say  that  we 
have  only  their  own  word  for  that,  but  this 
is  not  so.  Mr.  Gardner  had  a  friend,  whom 
I  will  call  Mr.  Sergeant,  who  held  a  com- 
mission in  the  Tank  Corps  in  the  war,  and  is 
an  honourable  gentleman  with  neither  the 
will  to  deceive  nor  any  conceivable  object  in 
doing  so.  This  gentleman  has  long  had  the 
enviable  gift  of  clairvoyance  in  a  very  high 
degree,  and  it  occurred  to  Mr.  Gardner  that 
we  might  use  him  as  a  check  upon  the  state- 
ments of  the  girls.  With  great  good  humour, 
he  sacrificed  a  week  of  his  scanty  holiday — 
for  he  is  a  hard-worked  man — in  this  curi- 
ous manner.  But  the  results  seem  to  have 
amply  repaid  him.  I  have  before  me  his 
reports,  which  are  in  the  form  of  notes  made 
as  he  actually  watched  the  phenomena  re- 
corded. The  weather  was,  as  stated,  bad  on 
106 


THE  SECOND  SERIES 

the  whole,  though  clearing  occasionally. 
Seated  with  the  girls,  he  saw  all  that  they 
saw,  and  more,  for  his  powers  proved  to  be 
considerably  greater.  Having  distinguished 
a  psychic  object,  he  would  point  in  the  direc- 
tion and  ask  them  for  a  description,  which 
he  always  obtained  correctly  within  the  limit 
of  their  powers.  The  whole  glen,  according 
to  his  account,  was  swarming  with  many 
forms  of  elemental  life,  and  he  saw  not  only 
wood-elves,  gnomes,  and  goblins,  but  the 
rarer  undines,  floating  over  the  stream.  I 
take  a  long  extract  from  his  rather  disjointed 
notes,  which  may  form  a  separate  chapter. 


107 


CHAPTER  V 

OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT  IN  THE  COT- 
TINGLEY  GLEN,  AUGUST  1921 

Gnomes  and  Fairies.  In  the  field  we  saw 
figures  about  the  size  of  the  gnome.  They 
were  making  weird  faces  and  grotesque  con- 
tortions at  the  group.  One  in  particular 
took  great  delight  in  knocking  his  knees  to- 
gether. These  forms  appeared  to  Elsie 
singly — one  dissolving  and  another  appear- 
ing in  its  place.  I,  however,  saw  them  in  a 
group  with  one  figure  more  prominently  vis- 
ible than  the  rest.  Elsie  saw  also  a  gnome 
like  the  one  in  the  photograph,  but  not  so 
bright  and  not  coloured.  I  saw  a  group  of 
female  figures  playing  a  game,  somewhat 
resembling  the  children's  game  of  oranges 
and  lemons.  They  played  in  a  ring;  the 
game  resembled  the  grand  chain  in  the  Lan- 
cers. One  fairy  stood  in  the  centre  of  the 
ring  more  or  less  motionless,  while  the  re- 
108 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

mainder,  who  appeared  to  be  decked  with 
flowers  and  to  show  colours,  not  normally 
their  own,  danced  round  her.  Some  joined 
hands  and  made  an  archway  for  the  others, 
who  moved  in  and  out  as  in  a  maze.  I  no- 
ticed that  the  result  of  the  game  appeared  to 
be  the  forming  of  a  vortex  of  force  which 
streamed  upwards  to  an  apparent  distance  of 
four  or  five  feet  above  the  ground.  I  also 
noticed  that  in  those  parts  of  the  field  where 
the  grass  was  thicker  and  darker,  there  ap- 
peared to  be  a  correspondingly  extra  activ- 
ity among  the  fairy  creatures. 

Water  Nymph.  In  the  beck  itself,  near 
the  large  rock,  at  a  slight  fall  in  the  water, 
I  saw  a  water  sprite.  It  was  an  entirely  nude 
female  figure  with  long  fair  hair,  which  it 
appeared  to  be  combing  or  passing  through 
its  fingers.  I  was  not  sure  whether  it  had 
any  feet  or  not.  Its  form  was  of  a  dazzling 
rosy  whiteness,  and  its  face  very  beautiful. 
The  arms,  which  were  long  and  graceful, 
were  moved  with  a  wave-like  motion.  It 
sometimes  appeared  to  be  singing,  though 
no  sound  was  heard.  It  was  in  a  kind  of 
cave,  formed  by  a  projecting  piece  of  rock 

109 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

and  some  moss.  Apparently  it  had  no  wings, 
and  it  moved  with  a  sinuous,  almost  snake- 
like motion,  in  a  semi-horizontal  position.  Its 
atmosphere  and  feeling  was  quite  di:fferent 
from  that  of  the  fairies.  It  showed  no  con- 
sciousness of  my  presence,  and,  though  I 
waited  with  the  camera  in  the  hope  of  taking 
it,  it  did  not  detach  itself  from  the  surround- 
ings in  which  it  was  in  some  way  merged. 

Wood  Elves.  (Under  the  old  beeches  in 
the  wood,  Cottingley,  August  12,  1921.) 
Two  tiny  wood  elves  came  racing  over  the 
ground  past  us  as  we  sat  on  g,  fallen  tree 
trunk.  Seeing  us,  they  pulled  up  short  about 
five  feet  away,  and  stood  regarding  us  with 
considerable  amusement  but  no  fear.  They 
appeared  as  if  completely  covered  in  a  tight- 
fitting  one-piece  skin,  which  shone  slightly 
as  if  wet.  They  had  hands  and  feet  large 
and  out  of  pro]3ortion  to  their  bodies.  Their 
legs  were  somewhat  thin,  ears  large  and 
pointed  upwards,  being  almost  pear-shaped. 
There  were  a  large  number  of  these  figures 
racing  about  the  ground.  Their  noses  ap- 
peared almost  pointed  and  their  mouths 
wide.  No  teeth  and  no  structure  inside  the 
110 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

mouth,  not  even  a  tongue,  so  far  as  I  could 
see.  It  was  as  if  the  whole  were  made  up 
of  a  piece  of  jelly.  Surrounding  them,  as 
an  etheric  double  surrounds  a  physical  form, 
is  a  greenish  light,  something  like  chemi- 
cal vapour.  As  Prances  came  up  and  sat 
within  a  foot  of  them  they  withdrew,  as  if  in 
alarm,  a  distance  of  eight  feet  or  so,  where 
they  remained  apparently  regarding  us  and 
comparing  notes  of  their  impressions.  These 
two  live  in  the  roots  of  a  huge  beech  tree — 
they  disappeared  through  a  crevice  into 
which  they  walked  (as  one  might  walk  into 
a  cave)  and  sank  below  the  ground. 

Water  Fairy.  (August  14,  1921.)  By  a 
small  waterfall,  which  threw  up  a  fine  spray, 
was  seen  poised  in  the  spray  a  diminutive 
fairy  form  of  an  exceedingly  tenuous  nature. 
It  appeared  to  have  two  main  colourings, 
the  upper  part  of  its  body  and  aura  being 
pale  violet,  the  lower  portion  pale  pink.  This 
colouring  appeared  to  penetrate  right 
through  aura  and  denser  body,  the  ':'\:tline  of 
the  latter  merging  into  the  former.  This 
creature  hung  poised,  its  body  curved  grace- 
fully backwards,  its  left  arm  held  high  above 

111 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

its  head,  as  if  upheld  by  the  vital  force  in 
the  spray,  much  as  a  seagull  supports  itself 
against  the  wind.  It  was  as  if  lying  on  its 
back  in  a  curved  position  against  the  flow  of 
the  stream.  It  was  human  in  shape,  but  did 
not  show  any  characteristics  of  sex.  It  re- 
mained motionless  in  this  position  for  some 
moments,  then  flashed  out  of  view.  I  did  not 
notice  any  wings. 

Fairy,  Elves,  Gnomes,  and  Broivnie. 
(Sunday,  j^^.igust  14,  9  p.m.  In  the  field.) 
Lov^^.y  still  moonlight  evening.  The  field 
appears  to  be  densely  populated  with  native 
spirits  of  various  kinds — a  brownie,  fairies, 
elves,  and  gnomes. 

A  Brownie.  He  is  rather  taller  than  the 
normal,  say  eight  inches,  dressed  entirely  in 
brown  with  facings  of  a  darker  shade,  bag- 
shaped  cap,  almost  conical,  knee  breeches, 
stockings,  thin  ankles,  and  large  pointed  feet 
— like  gnomes'  feet.  He  stands  facing  us, 
in  no  way  afraid,  perfectly  friendly  and 
much  ir+erested ;  he  gazes  wide-eyed  upon  us 
with  a  curious  expression  as  of  dawning  in- 
tellect. It  is  as  if  he  were  reaching  after 
something  j  ust  beyond  his  mental  grasp.  He 
112 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

looks  behind  him  at  a  group  of  fairies  who 
are  approaching  us  and  moves  to  one  side  as 
if  to  make  way.  His  mental  attitude  is  semi- 
dreamlike,  as  of  a  child  who  would  say  **I 
can  stand  and  watch  this  all  day  without  be- 
ing tired."  He  clearly  sees  much  of  our 
auras  and  is  strongly  affected  by  our  emana- 
tions. 

Fairies.  Frances  sees  tiny  fairies  dancing 
in  a  circle,  the  figures  gradually  expanding 
in  size  till  they  reached  eighteen  inches,  the 
ring  widening  in  proportion.  Elsie  sees  a 
vertical  circle  of  dancing  fairies  flying 
slowly  round ;  as  each  one  touched  the  grass 
he  appeared  to  perform  a  few  quick  steps 
and  then  continued  his  slow  motion  round 
the  circle.  The  fairies  who  are  dancing  have 
long  skirts,  through  which  their  limbs  can 
be  seen ;  viewed  astrally  the  circle  is  bathed 
in  golden  yellow  light,  with  the  outer  edges 
of  many  hues,  violet  predominating.  The 
movement  of  the  fairies  is  reminiscent  of 
that  of  the  great  wheel  at  Earl 's  Court.  The 
fairies  float  very  slowly,  remaining  motion- 
less as  far  as  bodies  and  limbs  are  concerned, 
until  they  come  round  to  the  ground  again. 

113 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

There  is  a  tinkling  music  accompanying  all 
this.  It  appears  to  have  more  of  the  aspect 
of  a  ceremony  than  a  game.  Frances  sees 
two  fairy  figures  performing  as  if  on  the 
stage,  one  with  wings,  one  without.  Their 
bodies  shine  with  the  effect  of  rippling  water 
in  the  sun.  The  fairy  without  wings  has  bent 
over  backwards  like  a  contortionist  till  its 
head  touches  the  ground,  while  the  winged 
figure  bends  over  it.  Frances  sees  a  small 
Punch-like  figure,  with  a  kind  of  Welsh  hat, 
doing  a  kind  of  dancing  by  striking  its  heel 
on  the  ground  and  at  the  same  time  raising 
his  hat  and  bowing.  Elsie  sees  a  flower 
fairy,  like  a  carnation  in  shape,  the  head  ap- 
pearing where  the  stalk  touches  the  flower 
and  the  green  sepals  forming  a  tunic  from 
which  the  arms  protrude,  while  the  petals 
form  a  skirt,  below  which  are  rather  thin 
legs.  It  is  tripping  across  the  grass.  Its 
colouring  is  pink  like  a  carnation  in  a  pale, 
suffused  sort  of  way.  (Written  by  the  light 
of  the  moon.)  I  see  couples  a  foot  high,  fe- 
male and  male,  dancing  in  a  slow  waltz-like 
motion  in  the  middle  of  the  field.  They  ap- 
pear even  to  reverse.  They  are  clothed  in 
114 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

etheric  matter  and  rather  ghost-like  in  ap- 
pearance. Their  bodies  are  outlined  with 
grey  light  and  show  little  detail. 

Elsie  sees  a  small  imp  reminiscent  of  a 
monkey,  revolving  slowly  round  a  stalk  to 
the  top  of  which  he  was  clinging.  He  has  an 
impish  face  and  is  looking  our  way  as  if  per- 
forming for  our  benefit. 

The  brownie  appears  during  all  this  to 
have  taken  upon  himself  the  duties  of  show- 
man. I  see  what  may  be  described  as  a  fairy 
fountain  about  twenty  feet  ahead.  It  is 
caused  by  an  uprush  of  fairy  force  from  the 
ground — and  spreading  fish-tail  fashion 
higher  into  the  air — it  is  many-hued.  This 
was  also  seen  by  Frances. 

(Monday,  August  15.  In  the  field.)  I  saw 
three  figures  racing  from  the  field  into  the 
wood — the  same  figures  previously  seen  in 
the  wood.  When  about  a  distance  of  ten 
yards  from  the  wall  they  leapt  over  it  into 
the  wood  and  disappeared.  Elsie  sees  in 
centre  of  field  a  very  beautiful  fairy  figure, 
somewhat  resembling  a  figure  of  Mercury, 
without  winged  sandals,  but  has  fairy  wings. 
Nude,  light  curly  hair,  kneeling  down  in  a 

115 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

dark  clump  of  grass,  with  its  attention  fixed 
on  something  in  the  ground.  It  changes  its 
position ;  first  it  is  sitting  back  on  its  heels, 
and  then  it  is  rising  to  its  full  kneeling 
height.  Much  larger  than  usual,  probably 
eighteen  inches  high.  It  waves  its  arms  over 
some  object  on  the  ground.  It  has  picked  up 
something  from  the  ground  (as  I  think  a 
baby)  and  holds  it  to  its  breast  and  seems  to 
be  praying.  Has  Greek  features  and  re- 
sembles a  Greek  statue — like  a  figure  out  of 
a  Greek  tragedy. 

(Tuesday,  August  16,  10  p.m.  In  the 
field.)  By  the  light  of  a  small  photographic 
lamp. 

Fairies.  Elsie  sees  a  circle  of  fairies  trip- 
ping round,  hands  joined,  facing  outwards. 
A  figure  appears  in  the  centre  of  the  ring, 
at  the  same  time  the  fairies  faced  inwards. 

Goblins.  A  group  of  goblins  came  run- 
ning towards  us  from  the  wood  to  within  fif- 
teen feet  of  us.  They  differ  somewhat  from 
the  wood  elves,  having  more  the  look  of 
gnomes,  though  they  are  smaller,  being  about 
the  size  of  small  brownies. 

Fairy.  Elsie  sees  a  beautiful  fairy  quite 
116 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

near;  it  is  nude,  with  golden  hair,  and  is 
kneeling  in  the  grass,  looking  this  way  with 
hands  on  knees,  smiling  at  us.  It  has  a  very 
beautiful  face,  and  is  concentrating  its  gaze 
on  me.  This  figure  came  within  five  feet  of 
us,  and,  after  being  described,  faded  away. 

Elf.  Elsie  sees  a  kind  of  elf  who  seems  to 
be  going  so  fast  that  it  blows  his  hair  back ; 
one  can  sense  the  wind  round  him,  yet  he  is 
stationary,  though  he  looks  to  be  busily  hur- 
rying along. 

Goblins.  Elsie  sees  a  flight  of  little  manni- 
kins,  imp-like  in  appearance,  descending 
slantwise  on  to  the  grass.  They  form  into 
two  lines  which  cross  each  other  as  they  come 
down.  One  line  is  coming  vertically  down, 
feet  touching  head,  the  other  comes  across 
them  shoulder  to  shoulder.  On  reaching  the 
ground  they  all  run  off  in  different  direc- 
tions, all  serious,  as  if  intent  upon  some  busi- 
ness. The  elves  from  the  wood  appear  to 
be  chiefly  engaged  in  racing  across  the  field, 
though  no  other  purpose  appears  to  be  served 
by  their  speed  or  presence.  Few  of  them 
pass  near  us  without  pulling  up  to  stare. 
The  elves  seem  to  be  the  most  curious  of  all 

117 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

the  fairy  creatures.    Frances  sees  three  and 
calls  them  goblins. 

Fairy.  A  blue  fairy.  A  fairy  with  wings 
and  general  colouring  of  sea-blue  and  pale 
pink.  The  wings  are  webbed  and  marked  in 
varying  colours  like  those  of  a  butterfly. 
The  form  is  perfectly  modelled  and  practi- 
cally nude.  A  golden  star  shines  in  the  hair. 
The  fairy  is  a  director,  though  not  appar- 
ently with  any  band  for  the  present. 

Fairy  Band.  There  has  suddenly  arrived 
in  the  field  a  fairy  director  with  a  band  of 
fairy  people.  Their  arrival  causes  a  bright 
radiance  to  shine  in  the  field,  visible  to  us 
sixty  yards  away.  She  is  very  autocratic 
and  definite  in  her  orders,  holding  unques- 
tioned command.  They  spread  themselves 
out  into  a  gradually  widening  circle  around 
her,  and  as  they  do  so,  a  soft  glow  spreads 
out  over  the  grass.  They  are  actually  vivi- 
fying and  stimulating  the  growth  in  the  field. 
This  is  a  moving  band  which  arrives  in  this 
field  swinging  high  over  the  tree  tops  as  if 
from  a  considerable  distance.  Inside  a  space 
of  two  minutes  the  circle  has  spread  to  ap- 
proximately twelve  feet  wide  and  is  wonder- 
118 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

fully  radiant  with  light.  Each  member  of 
the  band  is  connected  to  the  leader  by  a  thin 
stream  of  light.  These  streams  are  of  differ- 
ent colour,  though  chiefly  yellow,  deepening 
to  orange.  They  meet  in  the  centre,  merging 
in  her  aura,  and  there  is  a  constant  flow  back- 
wards and  forwards  among  them.  The  form 
produced  by  this  is  something  like  an  in- 
verted fruit  dish,  with  the  central  fairy  as 
the  stem,  and  the  lines  of  light  which  flow  in 
a  graceful  even  curve  forming  the  sides  of 
the  bowl.  This  party  is  in  intense  activity, 
as  if  it  had  much  to  do  and  little  time  in 
which  to  do  it.  The  director  is  vivified  and 
instructed  from  within  herself,  and  appears 
to  have  her  consciousness  seated  upon  a 
more  subtle  plane  th^n  that  upon  which  she 
is  working. 

Fairy.  Elsie  sees  a  tall  and  stately 
fairy  come  across  the  field  to  a  clump  of 
harebells.  It  is  carrying  in  its  arms  some- 
thing which  may  be  a  baby  fairy,  wrapped 
in  gauzy  substance.  It  lays  this  in  the  clump 
of  harebells  and  kneels  down  as  though 
stroking  something,  and  after  a  time  fades 
away.    We  catch  impressions  of  four-footed 

119 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

creatures  being  ridden  by  winged  figures 
who  are  thin  and  bend  over  their  mounts 
like  jockeys.  It  is  no  known  animal  which 
they  bestride,  having  a  face  something  like 
that  of  a  caterpillar. 

Amongst  this  fairy  activity  which  appears 
all  over  the  field,  one  glimpses  an  occasional 
gnome-like  form  walking  with  serious  mien 
across  the  field,  whilst  the  wood  elves  and 
other  imp-like  forms  run  about  amongst 
their  more  seriously  employed  fairy  kind. 
All  three  of  us  keep  seeing  weird  creatures 
as  of  elemental  essence. 

Elsie  sees  about  a  dozen  fairies  moving 
towards  us  in  a  crescent-shaped  flight.  As 
they  drew  near  she  remarked  with  ecstasy 
upon  their  perfect  beauty  of  form — even 
while  she  did  so  they  became  as  ugly  as  sin, 
as  if  to  give  the  lie  to  her  words.  They  all 
leered  at  her  and  disappeared.  In  this  epi- 
sode it  may  be  that  one  contacts  a  phase  of 
the  antagonism  and  dislike  which  so  many 
of  the  fairy  creatures  feel  for  humans  at 
this  stage  of  evolution. 

Frances  saw  seven  wee  fairies  quite  near 
120 


OBSERVATIONS  OF  A  CLAIRVOYANT 

— weird  little  figures — lying  face  down- 
wards. 

(In  the  Glen,  ISth,  2  p.m.)  Frances  sees 
a  fairy  as  big  as  herself,  clothed  in  tights  and 
a  garment  scalloped  round  the  hips;  the 
whole  is  tight-fitting  and  flesh-coloured ;  she 
has  very  large  wings  which  she  opens  above 
her  head ;  then  she  raises  her  arms  from  her 
side  up  above  her  head  and  waves  them 
gracefully  in  the  air.  She  has  a  very  beau- 
tiful face  with  an  expression  as  if  inviting 
Frances  into  Fairyland.  Her  hair  is  ap- 
parently bobbed  and  her  wings  are  trans- 
parent. 

Golden  Fairy.  One  specially  beautiful  one 
has  a  body  clothed  in  iridescent  shimmering 
golden  light.  She  has  tall  wings,  each  of 
which  is  almost  divided  into  upper  and  lower 
portions.  The  lower  portion,  which  is  small- 
er than  the  upper,  appears  to  be  elongated  to 
a  point  like  the  wings  of  certain  butterflies. 
She,  too,  is  moving  her  arms  and  fluttering 
her  wings.  I  can  only  describe  her  as  a 
golden  wonder.  She  smiles  and  clearly  sees 
us.  She  places  her  finger  on  her  lips.  She 
remains  watching  us  with  smiling  counte- 

121 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

nance  in  ain'""'^st  the  leaves  and  branches 
of  the  willow.  She  is  not  objectively  visible 
on  the  physical  plane.  She  points  with  her 
right  hand;  moving  it  in  a  circle  round  her 
feet,  and  I  see  a  number,  perhaps  six  or 
seven,  cherubs  (winged  faces) ;  these  appear 
to  be  held  in  shape  by  some  invisible  will. 
She  has  cast  a  fairy  spell  over  me  completely 
subjugating  the  mental  principle — leaves 
me  staring  wild-eyed  in  amongst  the  leaves 
and  flowers. 

An  elf -like  creature  runs  up  the  slanting 
branch  of  the  willow  from  the  ground  where 
the  fairy  stands.  He  is  not  a  very  pleasant 
visitor — I  should  describe  him  as  distinctly 
low  class. 


122 


CHAPTER  VI 

INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

By  a  curious  coincidence,  if  it  be  indeed 
a  coincidence,  at  the  moment  when  the  evi- 
dence for  the  actual  existence  of  fairies  was 
brought  to  my  notice,  I  had  just  finished  an 
article  dealing  with  the  subject,  in  which  I 
gave  particulars  of  a  number  of  cases  where 
such  creatures  were  said  to  have  been  seen, 
and  showed  how  very  strong  were  the  rea- 
sons for  supposing  that  some  such  forms  of 
life  exist.  I  now  reproduce  this  article,  and 
I  add  to  it  another  chapter  containing  fresh 
evidence  which  reached  me  after  the  publi- 
cation of  the  photographs  in  the  Strand 
Magazine. 

We  are  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  amphib- 
ious creatures  who  may  dwell  unseen  and 
unknown  in  the  depths  of  the  waters,  and 
then  some  day  be  spied  sunning  themselves 

123 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

upon  a  sandbank,  whence  they  slip  into  the 
unseen  once  more.  If  such  appearances 
were  rare,  and  if  it  should  so  happen  that 
some  saw  them  more  clearly  than  others,  then 
a  very  pretty  controversy  would  arise,  for 
the  sceptics  would  say,  with  every  show  of 
reason,  **Our  experience  is  that  only  land 
creatures  live  on  the  land,  and  we  utterly 
refuse  to  believe  in  things  which  slip  in  and 
out  of  the  water;  if  you  will  demonstrate 
them  to  us  we  will  begin  to  consider  the 
question.''  Faced  by  so  reasonable  an  op- 
position, the  others  could  only  mutter  that 
they  had  seen  them  with  their  own  eyes,  but 
that  they  could  not  command  their  move- 
ments.    The  sceptics  would  hold  the  field. 

Something  of  the  sort  may  exist  in  our 
psychic  arrangements.  One  can  well  imag- 
ine that  there  is  a  dividing  line,  like  the 
water  edge,  this  line  depending  upon  what 
we  vaguely  call  a  higher  rate  of  vibrations. 
Taking  the  vibration  theory  as  a  working 
hypothesis,  one  could  conceive  that  by  rais- 
ing or  lowering  the  rate  the  creatures  could 
move  from  one  side  to  the  other  of  this  line 
of  material  visibility,  as  the  tortoise  moves 
124 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

from  the  water  to  the  land,  returning  for 
refuge  to  invisibility  as  the  reptile  scuttles 
back  to  the  surf.  This,  of  course,  is  supposi- 
tion, but  intelligent  supposition  based  on 
the  available  evidence  is  the  pioneer  of 
science,  and  it  may  be  that  the  actual  solution 
will  be  found  in  this  direction.  I  am  allud- 
ing now,  not  to  spirit  return,  where  seventy 
years  of  close  observation  has  given  us  some 
sort  of  certain  and  definite  laws,  but  rather 
to  those  fairy  and  phantom  phenomena 
which  have  been  endorsed  by  so  many  ages, 
and  still  even  in  these  material  days  seem  to 
break  into  some  lives  in  the  most  unexpected 
fashion. 

Victorian  science  would  have  left  the 
world  hard  and  clean  and  bare,  like  a  land- 
scape in  the  moon;  but  this  science  is  in 
truth  but  a  little  light  in  the  darkness,  and 
outside  that  limited  circle  of  definite  knowl- 
edge we  see  the  loom  and  shadow  of  gigan- 
tic and  fantastic  possibilities  around  us, 
throv^ing  themselves  continually  across  our 
consciousness  in  such  ways  that  it  is  difficult 
to  ignore  them. 

There  is  much  curious  evidence  of  vary- 

125 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

ing  value  concerning  these  borderland 
forms,  which  come  or  go  either  in  fact  or 
imagination — the  latter  most  frequently,  no 
doubt.  And  yet  there  remains  a  residue 
which,  by  all  human  standards,  should  j)oint 
to  occasional  fact.  Lest  I  should  be  too  dif- 
fuse, I  limit  myself  in  this  essay  to  the  fair- 
ies, and  passing  all  the  age-long  tradition, 
which  is  so  universal  and  consistent,  come 
down  to  some  modern  instances  which  make 
one  feel  that  this  world  is  very  much  more 
complex  than  we  had  imagined,  and  that 
there  may  be  upon  its  surface  some  very 
strange  neighbours  who  will  open  up  incon- 
ceivable lines  of  science  for  our  posterity, 
especially  if  it  should  be  made  easier  for 
thetai,  by  sympathy  or  other  help,  to  emerge 
from  the  deep  and  manifest  upon  the  mar- 
gin. 

Taking  a  large  number  of  cases  which  lie 
before  me,  there  are  two  points  which  are 
common  to  nearly  all  of  them.  One  is  that 
children  claim  to  see  these  creatures  far 
more  frequently  than  adults.  This  may  pos- 
sibly come  from  greater  sensitiveness  of  ap- 
prehension, or  it  may  depend  upon  these 
126 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

little  entities  having  less  fear  of  molestation 
from  tlie  children.  The  other  is,  that  more 
cases  are  recorded  in  which  they  have  been 
seen  in  the  still,  shimmering  hours  of  a  very 
hot  day  than  at  any  other  time.  * '  The  action 
of  the  sun  upon  the  brain, ' '  says  the  sceptic. 
Possibly — and  also  possibly  not.  If  it  were 
a  question  of  raising  the  slower  vibrations 
of  our  surroundings  one  could  imagine  that 
still,  silent  heat  would  be  the  very  condition 
which  might  favour  such  a  change.  What 
is  the  mirage  of  the  desert?  What  is  that 
scene  of  hills  and  lakes  which  a  whole  cara- 
van can  see  while  it  faces  in  a  direction  where 
for  a  thousand  miles  of  desert  there  is 
neither  hill  nor  lake,  nor  any  cloud  or  mois- 
ture to  produce  refraction?  I  can  ask  the 
question,  but  I  do  not  venture  to  give  an 
answer.  It  is  clearly  a  phenomenon  which  is 
not  to  be  confused  with  the  erect  or  often 
inverted  image  which  is  seen  in  a  land  of 
clouds  and  of  moisture. 

If  the  confidence  of  children  can  be  gained 
and  they  are  led  to  speak  freely,  it  is  sur- 
prising how  many  claim  to  have  seen  fairies. 
My  younger  family  consists  of  two  little  boys 

127 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

and  one  small  girl,  very  truthful  children, 
each  of  whom  tells  with  detail  the  exact 
circumstances  and  appearance  of  the  crea- 
ture. To  each  it  happened  only  once,  and 
in  each  case  it  was  a  single  little  figure,  twice 
in  the  garden,  once  in  the  nursery.  Inquiry 
among  friends  shows  that  many  children 
have  had  the  same  experience,  but  they  close 
up  at  once  when  met  by  ridicule  and  in- 
credulity. Sometimes  the  shapes  are  unlike 
those  which  they  would  have  gathered  from 
picture-books.  "Fairies  are  like  nuts  and 
moss,"  says  one  child  in  Lady  Glenconner's 
charming  study  of  family  life.  My  own 
children  differ  in  the  height  of  the  creatures, 
which  may  well  vary,  but  in  their  dress  they 
are  certainly  not  unlike  the  conventional 
idea,  which,  after  all,  may  also  be  the  true 
one. 

There  are  many  people  who  have  a  recol- 
lection of  these  experiences  of  their  youth, 
and  try  afterwards  to  explain  them  away  on 
material  grounds  which  do  not  seem  ade- 
quate or  reasonable.  Thus  in  his  excellent 
book  on  folk-lore,  the  Rev.  S.  Baring-Gould 
gives  us  a  personal  experience  which  illus- 
128 


A   VIKW  OF   TIIK   i;i;(  K    IX    T.1'21 


TiiK  TWO  (;iKi.s  ni;ak  TiiK,  si'OT  \viii:i!i:  Till-:  i.i'.AriNc 

KAlliY    WAS    TAKKN    1 N    U>2(» 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

trates  several  of  the  points  already  men- 
tioned. ' '  In  the  year  1838, ' '  he  says,  * '  when 
I  was  a  small  boy  of  four  years  old,  we  were 
driving  to  Montpelier  on  a  hot  summer  day 
over  the  long  straight  road  that  traverses  a 
pebble-and-rubble-strewn  plain,  on  which 
grows  nothing  save  a  few  aromatic  herbs. 
I  was  sitting  on  the  box  with  my  father  when, 
to  my  great  surprise,  I  saw  legions  of  dwarfs 
of  about  two  feet  high  running  along  beside 
the  horses;  some  sat  laughing  on  the  pole, 
some  were  scrambling  up  the  harness  to  get 
on  the  backs  of  the  horses.  I  remarked  to 
my  father  what  I  saw,  when  he  abruptly 
stopped  the  carriage  and  put  me  inside  be- 
side my  mother,  where,  the  conveyance  being 
closed,  I  was  out  of  the  sun..  The  effect  was 
that,  little  by  little,  the  host  of  imps  dimin- 
ished in  number  till  they  disappeared  al- 
together." 

Here,  certainly,  the  advocates  of  sunstroke 
have  a  strong,  though  by  no  means  a  final, 
case.  Mr.  Baring-Gould's  next  illustration 
is  a  sounder  one. 

**When  my  wife  was  a  girl  of  fifteen,"  he 
says,  *'she  was  walking  down  a  lane  in  York- 

129 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

shire,  between  green  hedges,  when  she  saw 
seated  in  one  of  the  privet  hedges  a  little 
green  man,  perfectly  well  made,  who  looked 
at  her  with  his  beady  black  eyes.  He  was 
about  a  foot  or  fifteen  inches  high.  She  was 
so  frightened  that  she  ran  home.  She 
remembers  that  it  was  a  summer  day." 

A  girl  of  fifteen  is  old  enough  to  be  a  good 
witness,  and  her  flight  and  the  clear  detail  of 
her  memory  point  to  a  real  experience. 
Again  we  have  the  suggestion  of  a  hot  day. 

Baring-Gould  has  yet  a  third  case.  ''One 
day  a  son  of  mine,"  he  says,  "was  sent  into 
the  garden  to  pick  pea-pods  for  the  cook  to 
shell  for  dinner.  Presently  he  rushed  into 
the  house  as  white  as  chalk  to  say  that  while 
he  was  thus  engaged,  and  standing  between 
the  rows  of  peas,  he  saw  a  little  man  w^earing 
a  red  cap,  a  green  jacket,  and  brown  knee- 
breeches,  whose  face  was  old  and  wan,  and 
who  had  a  grey  beard  and  eyes  as  black  and 
hard  as  sloes.  He  stared  so  intently  at  the 
boy  that  the  latter  took  to  his  heels." 

Here,  again,  the  pea-pods  show^  that  it  was 
summer,  and  probably  in  the  heat  of  the 
day.  Once  again  the  detail  is  very  exact 
130 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

and  corresponds  closely,  as  I  shall  presently 
show,  to  some  independent  accounts.  Mr. 
Baring-Gould  is  inclined  to  put  all  these 
down  to  the  heat  conjuring  up  the  familiar 
pictures  of  fairy  books,  but  some  further  evi- 
dence may  cause  the  reader  to  doubt  this 
explanation. 

Let  us  compare  with  these  stories  the  very 
direct  evidence  of  Mrs.  Violet  Tweedale, 
whose  courage  in  making  public  the  result 
of  her  own  remarkable  psychic  faculties 
should  meet  with  recognition  from  every 
student  of  the  subject.  Our  descendants 
will  hardly  realize  the  difficulty  which  now 
exists  of  getting  first-hand  evidence  vdth 
names  attached,  for  they  will  have  outgrown 
the  state  when  the  cry  of  "fake"  and 
"fraud"  and  "dupe"  is  raised  at  once 
against  any  observer,  however  honourable 
and  moderate,  by  people  who  know  little  or 
nothing  of  the  subject.  Mrs.  Tweedale 
says: 

"I  had  a  wonderful  little  experience  some 
five  years  ago  which  proved  to  me  the  exist- 
ence of  fairies.  One  summer  afternoon  I 
was  walking  alone  along  the  avenue  of  Lup- 

131 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

ton  House,  Devonshire.  It  was  an  absolutely 
still  day — not  a  leaf  moving,  and  all  Nature 
seemed  to  sleep  in  the  hot  sunshine.  A  tew 
yards  in  front  of  me  my  eye  was  attracted 
by  the  violent  movements  of  a  single  long 
blade-like  leaf  of  a  wild  iris.  This  leaf  was 
swinging  and  bending  energetically,  while 
the  rest  of  the  plant  was  motionless.  Expect- 
ing to  see  a  field-mouse  astride  it,  I  stepped 
very  softly  up  to  it.  What  was  my  delight 
to  see  a  tiny  green  man.  He  was  about  five 
inches  long,  and  was  swinging  back-down- 
wards. His  tiny  green  feet,  which  appeared 
to  be  green-booted,  were  crossed  over  the 
leaf,  and  his  hands,  raised  behind  his  head, 
also  held  the  blade.  I  had  a  vision  of  a 
merry  little  face  and  something  red  in  the 
form  of  a  cap  on  the  head.  For  a  full 
minute  he  remained  in  view,  swinging  on  the 
leaf.  Then  he  vanished.  Since  then  I  have 
several  times  seen  a  single  leaf  moving  vio- 
lently while  the  rest  of  the  plant  remained 
motionless,  but  I  have  never  again  been 
able  to  see  the  cause  of  the  movement. ' ' 

Here  the  dress  of  the  fairy,  green  jacket 
and  red  cap,  is  exactly  the  same  as  was 
132 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

described  independently  by  Baring-Gould's 
son,  and  again  we  have  the  elements  of  heat 
and  stillness.  It  may  be  fairly  answered 
that  many  artists  have  drawn  the  fairies  in 
such  a  dress,  and  that  the  colours  may  in 
this  way  have  been  impressed  upon  the 
minds  of  both  observers.  In  the  bending 
iris  we  have  something  objective,  however, 
which  cannot  easily  be  explained  away  as  a 
cerebral  hallucination,  and  the  whole  inci- 
dent seems  to  me  an  impressive  piece  of  evi- 
dence. 

A  lady  with  whom  I  have  corresponded, 
Mrs.  H.,  who  is  engaged  in  organizing  work 
of  the  most  responsible  kind,  has  had  an 
experience  which  resembles  that  of  Mrs. 
Tweedale.  **My  only  sight  of  a  fairy,"  she 
says,  "was  in  a  large  wood  in  West  Sussex, 
about  nine  years  ago.  He  was  a  little  crea- 
ture about  half  a  foot  high,  dressed  in  leaves. 
The  remarkable  thing  about  his  face  was 
that  no  soul  looked  through  his  eyes.  He 
was  playing  about  in  long  grass  and  flowers 
in  an  open  space."  Once  again  summer  is 
indicated.  The  length  and  colour  of  the 
creature  correspond  with  Mrs.  Tweedale 's 

133 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

account,  while  tlie  lack  of  soul  in  the  eyes 
may  be  compared  with  the  ''hard"  eyes  de- 
scribed by  young  Baring-Gould. 

One  of  the  most  gifted  clairvoyants  in 
England  was  the  late  Mr.  Turvey,  of  Bourne- 
mouth, whose  book.  The  Beginnings  of 
Seersliip,  should  be  in  the  library  of  every 
student.  Mr.  Lonsdale,  of  Bournemouth,  is 
also  a  well-known  sensitive.  The  latter  has 
given  me  the  following  account  of  an  inci- 
dent which  he  observed  some  years  ago  in 
the  presence  of  Mr.  Turvey. 

*'I  was  sitting,"  says  Mr.  Lonsdale,  *'in 
his  company  in  his  garden  at  Branksome 
Park.  We  sat  in  a  hut  which  had  an  open 
front  looking  on  to  the  lawn.  We  had  been 
perfectly  quiet  for  some  time,  neither  talk- 
ing nor  moving,  as  was  often  our  habit.  Sud- 
denly I  was  conscious  of  a  movement  on  the 
edge  of  the  lawn,  which  on  that  side  went  up 
to  a  grove  of  pine  trees.  Looking  closely,  I 
saw  several  little  figures  dressed  in  brown 
peering  through  the  bushes.  They  remained 
quiet  for  a  few  minutes  and  then  disap- 
peared. In  a  few  seconds  a  dozen  or  more 
small  people,  about  two  feet  in  height,  in 
134 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

bright  clothes  and  wdth  radiant  faces,  ran  on 
to  the  lawn,  dancing  hither  and  thither.  I 
glanced  at  Turvey  to  see  if  he  saw  anything, 
and  whispered,  'Do  you  see  them'?'  He 
nodded.  These  fairies  played  about,  gradu- 
ally approaching  the  hut.  One  little  fellow, 
bolder  than  the  others,  came  to  a  croquet 
hoop  close  to  the  hut  and,  using  the  hoop  as  a 
horizontal  bar,  turned  round  and  round  it, 
much  to  our  amusement.  Some  of  the  others 
watched  him,  while  others  danced  about, 
not  in  any  set  dance,  but  seemingly  moving 
in  sheer  joy.  This  continued  for  four  or  five 
minutes,  when  suddenly,  evidently  in  re- 
sponse to  some  signal  or  warning  from  those 
dressed  in  brown,  who  had  remained  at  the 
edge  of  the  lawn,  they  all  ran  into  the  wood. 
Just  then  a  maid  appeared  coming  from  the 
house  with  tea.  Never  was  tea  so  unwelcome, 
as  evidently  its  appearance  was  the  cause  of 
the  disappearance  of  our  little  visitors." 
Mr.  Lonsdale  adds,  "I  have  seen  fairies 
several  times  in  the  New  Forest,  but  never 
so  clearly  as  this."  Here  also  the  scene  is 
laid  in  the  heat  of  a  summer  day,  and  the 
division  of  the  fairies  into  two  different  sorts 

135 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

is  remarkably  borne  out  by  the  general 
descriptions. 

Knowing  Mr.  Lonsdale  as  I  do  to  be  a 
responsible,  well-balanced,  and  honourable 
man,  I  find  such  evidence  as  this  very  hard 
to  put  to  one  side.  Here  at  least  the  sun- 
stroke hypothesis  is  negatived,  since  both 
men  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  hut  and 
corroborated  the  observation  of  the  other. 
On  the  other  hand,  each  of  the  men,  like  Mrs. 
Tweedale,  was  supernormal  in  psychic  de- 
velopment, so  that  it  might  well  happen  that 
the  maid,  for  example,  would  not  have  seen 
the  fairies,  even  if  she  had  arrived  earlier 
upon  the  scene. 

I  know  a  gentleman  belonging  to  one  of 
the  learned  professions  whose  career  as,  let 
us  say,  a  surgeon  would  not  be  helped  if 
this  article  were  to  connect  him  with  fairy 
lore.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  spite  of  his 
solemn  avocations  and  his  practical  and 
virile  character,  he  seems  to  be  endowed  with 
that  faculty — let  us  call  it  the  appreciation 
of  higher  vibrations — which  opens  up  so 
wonderful  a  door  to  its  possessor.  He  claims, 
or  rather  he  admits,  for  he  is  reticent  upon 
136 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

the  subject,  that  he  has  carried  this  power 
of  perception  on  from  childhood,  and  his  sur- 
prise is  not  so  much  at  what  he  sees  as  at  the 
failure  of  others  to  see  the  same  thing.  To 
show  that  it  is  not  subjective,  he  tells  the 
story  that  on  one  occasion,  while  traversing 
a  field,  he  saw  a  little  creature  which  beck- 
oned eagerly  that  he  should  follow.  He  did 
so,  and  presently  saw  his  guide  pointing  with 
an  air  of  importance  to  the  ground.  There, 
between  the  furrows,  lay  a  flint  arrow-head 
which  he  carried  home  with  him  as  a  souvenir 
of  the  adventure. 

Another  friend  of  mine  who  claims  to  have 
the  power  of  seeing  fairies  is  Mr.  Tom 
Tyrrell,  the  famous  medium,  whose  clair- 
voyance and  general  psychic  gifts  are  of  the 
strongest  character.  I  cannot  easily  forget 
how  one  evening  in  a  Yorkshire  hotel  a  storm 
of  raps,  sounding  very  much  as  if  someone 
were  cracking  their  fingers  and  thumb,  broke 
out  around  his  head,  and  how  with  his  coffee- 
cup  in  one  hand  he  flapped  vigorously  with 
the  other  to  warn  off  his  inopportune  visi- 
tors. In  answer  to  my  question  about  fairies 
he  says,  "Yes,  I  do  see  these  little  pixies  or 

137 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

fairies.  I  have  seen  them  scores  of  times. 
But  only  in  the  woods  and  when  I  do  a  little 
fasting.  They  are  a  very  real  presence  to 
me.  What  are  they?  I  cannot  say.  lean 
never  get  nearer  to  the  beggars  than  four  or 
five  yards.  They  seem  afraid  of  me,  and 
then  scamper  off  up  the  trees  like  squirrels. 
I  dare  say  if  I  were  to  go  in  the  woods 
oftener  I  would  perhaps  gain  their  confi- 
dence more.  They  are  certainly  like  human 
beings,  only  very  small,  say  about  twelve  or 
fifteen  inches  high.  I  have  noticed  they  are 
brown  in  colour,  with  fairly  large  heads  and 
standing-up  ears,  out  of  proportion  to  the 
size  of  their  bodies,  and  bandy  legs.  I  am 
speaking  of  what  I  see.  I  have  never  come 
across  any  other  clairvoyant  who  has  seen 
them,  though  I  have  read  that  many  do  so. 
Probably  they  have  something  to  do  with 
Nature  processes.  The  males  have  very 
short  hair,  and  the  females  have  rather  long, 
straight  hair." 

The  idea  that  these  little  creatures  are 

occupied  in  consciously  furthering  Nature's 

projects — very  much,  I  suppose,  as  the  bee 

carries  pollen — is  repeated  by  the  learned 

138 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

Dr.  Vanstone,  who  combines  great  knowl- 
edge of  theory  with  some  considerable  ex- 
perience, though  a  high  development  of  in- 
tellect is,  in  spite  of  Swedenborg's  example, 
a  bar  to  psychic  perception.  This  would 
show,  if  it  is  correct,  that  we  may  have  to 
return  to  the  classical  conception  of  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  naiads  and  fauns  and 
spirits  of  the  trees  and  groves.  Dr.  Van- 
stone,  whose  experiences  are  on  the  border- 
land between  what  is  objective  and  what  is 
sensed  without  being  actually  seen,  writes 
to  me:  *'I  have  been  distinctly  aware  of 
minute  intelligent  beings  in  connection  with 
the  evolution  of  plant  forces,  particularly  in 
certain  localities;  for  instance,  in  Eccles- 
bourne  Glen.  Pond  life  yields  to  me  the 
largest  and  best  sense  of  fairy,  life,  and  not 
the  floral  world.  I  may  be  only  clothing  my 
subjective  consciousness  with  unreal  objec- 
tive imaginations,  but  they  are  real  to  me  as 
sentient,  intelligent  beings,  able  to  communi- 
cate with  us  in  varying  distinctness.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  elemental  beings  are 
engaged,  like  factory  hands,  in  facilitating 
the  operation  of  Nature's  laws." 

139 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

Another  gentleman  who  claims  to  have 
this  most  remarkable  gift  is  Mr.  Tom  Char- 
man,  who  builds  for  himself  a  shelter  in  the 
New  Forest  and  hunts  for  fairies  as  an  ento- 
mologist would  for  butterflies.  In  answer 
to  my  inquiries,  he  tells  me  that  the  power 
of  vision  came  to  him  in  childhood,  but  left 
him  for  many  years,  varying  in  proportion 
with  his  own  nearness  to  Nature.  According 
to  this  seer,  the  creatures  are  of  many  sizes, 
varying  from  a  few  inches  to  several  feet. 
They  are  male,  female,  and  children.  He 
has  not  heard  them  utter  sounds,  but  believes 
that  they  do  so,  of  finer  quality  than  we  can 
hear.  They  are  visible  by  night  as  well  as 
by  day,  and  show  small  lights  about  the  same 
size  as  glow-wonns.  They  dress  in  all  sorts 
of  ways.     Such  is  Mr.  Charman's  account. 

It  is,  of  course,  easy  for  us  who  respond 
only  to  the  more  material  vibrations  to  de- 
clare that  all  these  seers  are  self-deluded,  or 
are  the  victims  of  some  mental  twist.  It  is 
difficult  for  them  to  defend  themselves  from 
such  a  charge.  It  is,  however,  to  be  urged 
upon  the  other  side  that  these  numerous 
testimonies  come  from  people  who  are  very 
140 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

solid  and  practical  and  successful  in  the  af- 
fairs of  life.  One  is  a  distinguished  writer, 
another  an  ophthalmic  authority,  a  third  a 
successful  professional  man,  a  fourth  a  lady 
engaged  on  public  service,  and  so  on.  To 
waive  aside  the  evidence  of  such  people  on 
the  ground  that  it  does  not  correspond  with 
our  o^Ti  experience  is  an  act  of  mental  arro- 
gance which  no  wise  man  will  commit. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  these  various 
contemporary  and  first-hand  accounts  of 
the  impressions  which  all  these  witnesses 
have  received.  I  have  already  pointed  out 
that  the  higher  vibrations  which  we  associate 
with  hot  sunshine,  and  which  we  actually 
seem  to  see  in  the  shimmer  of  noontide,  is  as- 
sociated with  many  of  the  episodes.  Apart 
from  this  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  evi- 
dence is  on  the  whole  irregular.  We  have 
creatures  described  which  range  from  five 
inches  to  two  and  a  half  feet.  An  advocate 
of  the  fairies  might  say  that,  since  the  tradi- 
tion has  always  been  that  they  procreate  as 
human  beings  do,  we  are  dealing  with  them 
in  ever>^  stage  of  growth,  which  accounts  for 
the  varying  size. 

141 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  a  better  case 
could  be  made  out  if  it  were  pleaded  that 
there  have  always  been  many  different  races 
of  fairyland,  and  that  samples  of  these  races 
may  greatly  differ  from  each  other,  and  may 
inhabit  varying  spots;  so  that  an  observer 
like  Mr.  Tyrrell,  for  example,  may  always 
have  seen  woodland  elves,  which  bear  no 
resemblance  to  gnomes  or  goblins.  The 
monkey-like,  brown-clad  creatures  of  my 
professional  friend,  which  were  over  two  feet 
high,  compare  very  closely  with  the  creatures 
which  little  Baring-Gould  saw  climbing  on 
to  the  horses.  In  both  cases  these  taller 
fairies  were  reported  from  flat,  plain-like 
locations;  while  the  little  old-man  type 
varies  completely  from  the  dancing  little 
feminine  elf  so  beloved  by  Shakespeare.  In 
the  experience  of  Mr.  Turvey  and  Mr.  Lons- 
dale, two  different  types  engaged  in  different 
tasks  were  actually  seen  at  the  same  moment, 
the  one  being  bright-coloured  dancing  elves, 
while  the  other  were  the  brown-coloured 
attendants  who  guarded  them. 

The  claim  that  the  fairy  rings  so  often 
seen  in  meadow  or  marshland  are  caused  by 
142 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

the  beat  of  fairy  feet  is  certainly  untenable, 
as  they  unquestionably  come  from  fungi  such 
as  Agaricus  gamhosus  or  Marasmius 
oreades,  which  grow  from  a  centre,  con- 
tinually deserting  the  exhausted  ground,  and 
spreading  to  that  which  is  fresh.  In  this 
way  a  complete  circle  is  formed,  which  may 
be  quite  small  or  may  be  of  twelve-foot 
diameter.  These  circles  appear  just  as 
often  in  woods  from  the  same  cause,  but  are 
smothered  over  by  the  decayed  leaves  among 
which  the  fungi  grow.  But  though  the 
fairies  most  certainly  do  not  produce  the 
rings,  it  might  be  asserted,  and  could  not  be 
denied,  that  the  rings  once  formed,  what- 
ever their  cause,  would  offer  a  very  charm- 
ing course  for  a  circular  ring-a-ring  dance. 
Certainly  from  all  time  these  circles  have 
been  associated  with  the  gambols  of  the  little 
people. 

After  these  modern  instances  one  is  in- 
clined to  read  with  a  little  more  gravity  the 
accoiuit  which  our  ancestors  gave  of  these 
creatures ;  for,  however  fanciful  in  parts,  it 
still  may  have  had  some  core  of  truth.  I 
say  "our  ancestors,"  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 

143 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

there  are  shepherds  on  the  South  Downs  to 
this  day  who  will  throw  a  bit  of  their  bread 
and  cheese  over  their  shoulders  at  dinner- 
time for  the  little  folks  to  consume.  All 
over  the  United  Kingdom,  and  especially  in 
Wales  and  Ireland,  the  belief  is  largely 
held  among  those  folks  who  are  nearest  to 
Nature.  First  of  all  it  was  always  supposed 
that  they  lived  within  the  earth.  This  was 
natural  enough,  since  a  sudden  disappear- 
ance of  a  solid  body  could  only  be  under- 
stood in  that  way.  On  the  whole,  their  de- 
scription was  not  grotesque,  and  fits  easily 
into  its  place  amid  the  examples  already 
given.  ''They  were  of  small  stature,"  says 
one  Welsh  authority,  quoted  in  Mrs.  Lewes 's 
Stranger  than  Fiction,  "towards  two  feet 
in  height,  and  their  horses  of  the  size  of 
hares.  Their  clothes  were  generally  white, 
but  on  certain  occasions  they  have  been  seen 
dressed  in  green.  Their  gait  was  lively,  and 
ardent  and  loving  was  their  glance.  .  .  . 
They  were  peaceful  and  kindly  among  them- 
selves, diverting  in  their  tricks,  and  charm- 
ing in  their  walk  and  dancing. ' '  This  men- 
tion of  horses  is  somewhat  out  of  the  picture, 
,144 


o 
c 

> 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

but  all  the  rest  seems  corroborative  of  what 
has  already  been  stated. 

One  of  the  best  of  the  ancient  accounts  is 
that  of  the  Rev.  R.  Kirk,  who  occupied  a 
parish  at  Monteith,  on  the  edge  of  the  High- 
lands, and  wrote  a  pamphlet  called  The 
Secret  Commomvealth,  about  the  year  1680. 
He  had  very  clear  and  definite  ideas  about 
these  little  creatures,  and  he  was  by  no  means 
a  visionary,  but  a  man  of  considerable  parts, 
who  was  chosen  afterwards  to  translate  the 
Bible  into  Erse.  His  information  about 
fairies  tallies  very  well  with  that  of  the 
Welshman  quoted  above.  He  slips  up  in 
imagining  that  flint  arrow-heads  are  indeed 
*' fairy-bolts,"  but  otherwise  his  contentions 
agree  very  w^ell  with  our  modem  instances. 
They  have  tribes  and  orders,  according  to 
this  Scottish  clergjrQian.  They  eat.  They 
converse  in  a  thin,  whistling  sort  of  lan- 
guage. They  have  children,  deaths,  and 
burials.  They  are  fond  of  frolic  dancing. 
They  have  a  regular  state  and  polity,  with 
rulers,  laws,  quarrels,  and  even  battles. 
They  are  irresponsible  creatures,  not  hostile 
to  the  human  race  unless  they  have  reason 

145 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

to  be  angry,  but  even  inclined  to  be  helpful, 
since  some  of  them,  the  brownies,  are,  by 
universal  tradition,  ready  to  aid  in  the  house- 
hold work  if  the  family  has  known  how  to 
engage  their  affection. 

An  exactly  sunilar  account  comes  from 
Ireland,  though  the  little  folk  seem  to  have 
imbibed  the  spirit  of  the  island  to  the  extent 
of  being  more  mercurial  and  irascible.  There 
are  many  cases  on  record  where  they  are 
claimed  to  have  shown  their  power,  and  to 
have  taken  revenge  for  some  slight.  In  the 
Lame  Reporter  of  March  31,  1866,  as 
quoted  in  True  Irish  Ghost  Stories^  there 
is  an  account  of  how  a  stone  which  the  fairies 
claimed  having  been  built  into  a  house,  the 
inhabitants  were  bombarded  with  stones  by 
invisible  assailants  by  day  and  night,  the 
missiles  hurting  no  one,  but  causing  great 
annoyance.  These  stories  of  stone-throwing 
are  so  common,  and  present  such  similar 
well-attested  features  in  cases  coming  from 
every  part  of  the  world,  that  they  may  be 
accepted  as  a  recognized  preternatural 
phenomenon,  whether  it  be  the  fairies  or 
some  other  form  of  mischievous  psychic 
146 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

force  which  caused  the  bombardment.  The 
volume  already  quoted  gives  another  re- 
markable case,  where  a  farmer,  having  built 
a  house  upon  what  was  really  a  fairy  right- 
of-way  between  two  *'raths"  or  fairy 
mounds,  was  exposed  to  such  persecution  by 
noises  and  other  disturbances  that  his  family 
was  at  last  driven  out,  and  had  to  take  ref- 
uge in  the  smaller  house  which  they  had 
previously  occupied.  This  story  is  narrated 
by  a  correspondent  from  Wexford,  who  says 
that  he  examined  the  facts  himself,  examined 
the  deserted  house,  cross-examined  the 
owner,  and  satisfied  himself  that  there  were 
two  raths  in  the  vicinity,  and  that  the  house 
was  in  a  dead-line  between  them. 

I  have  particulars  of  a  case  in  West  Sussex 
which  is  analogous,  and  which  I  have  been 
able  to  trace  to  the  very  lady  to  whom  it 
happened.  This  lady  desired  to  make  a 
rock-garden,  and  for  this  purpose  got  some 
large  boulders  from  a  field  hard  by,  which 
had  always  been  known  as  the  pixie  stones, 
and  built  them  into  her  new  rockery.  One 
summer  evening  this  lady  saw  a  tiny  grey 
woman  sitting  on  one  of  the  boulders.    The 

147 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

little  creature  slipped  away  when  she  knew 
that  she  had  been  observed.  Several  times 
she  appeared  upon  the  stones.  Later  the 
people  in  the  village  asked  if  the  stones  might 
be  moved  back  to  the  field,  "as,"  they  said, 
''they  are  the  pixie  stones,  and  if  they  are 
removed  from  their  place,  misfortunes  will 
happen  to  the  village."  The  stones  were 
restored. 

But  supposing  that  they  actually  do  exist, 
what  are  these  creatures?  That  is  a  subject 
upon  which  we  can  speculate  only  with  more 
or  less  plausibility.  Mr.  David  Gow,  editor 
of  Light,  and  a  considerable  authority  upon 
psychic  matters,  had  first  f  oniied  the  opinion 
that  they  were  simply  ordinary  human 
spirits,  seen,  as  it  were,  at  the  wrong  end  of  a 
clairvoyant  telescope,  and  therefore  very 
minute.  A  study  of  the  detailed  accounts  of 
their  varied  experience  caused  him  to  alter 
his  view,  and  to  conclude  that  they  are  really 
life  forms  which  have  developed  along  some 
separate  line  of  evolution,  and  which  for 
some  morphological  reason  have  assumed 
human  shape  in  the  strange  way  in  which 
Nature  reproduces  her  types  like  the  figures 
148 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

on  the  mandrake  root  or  the  frost  ferns  upon 
the  window. 

In  a  remarkable  book,  A  Wanderer  in 
the  Spirit  Lands,  published  in  1896,  the 
author,  Mr.  Farnese,  under  inspiration  gives 
an  account  of  many  mysteries,  including  that 
of  fairies.  What  he  says  fits  in  very  closely 
with  the  facts  that  have  been  put  forward, 
and  goes  beyond  them.  He  says,  speaking 
of  elementals:  ''Some  are  in  appearance 
like  the  gnomes  and  elves  who  are  said  to 
inhabit  mountain  caverns.  Such,  too,  are 
the  fairies  whom  men  have  seen  in  lonely 
and  secluded  places.  Some  of  these  beings 
are  of  a  very  low  order  of  life,  almost  like 
the  higher  order  of  plants,  save  that  they 
possess  independent  motion.  Others  are 
very  lively  and  full  of  grotesque,  unmean- 
ing tricks.  ...  As  nations  advance  and 
grow  more  spiritual  these  lower  forms  of  life 
die  out  from  the  astral  plane  of  that  earth's 
sphere,  and  succeeding  generations  begin  at 
first  to  doubt  and  then  to  deny  that  they 
ever  had  anj^  existence. ' '  This  is  one  plausi- 
ble way  of  explaining  the  disappearance 
of  the  faun,  the  dryad,  the  naiad,  and  all  the 

149 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

creatures  which  are  alluded  to  with  such 
familiarity  in  the  classics  of  Greece  and 
Rome. 

One  may  well  ask  what  connection  has  this 
fairy-lore  with  the  general  scheme  of  psychic 
philosophy  ?  The  connection  is  slight  and  in- 
direct, consisting  only  in  the  fact  that  any- 
thing which  widens  our  conceptions  of  the 
possible,  and  shakes  us  out  of  our  time- 
rutted  lines  of  thought,  helps  us  to  regain 
our  elasticity  of  mind,  and  thus  to  be  more 
open  to  new  philosophies.  The  fairy  ques- 
tion is  infinitely  small  and  unimportant  com- 
pared to  the  question  of  our  own  fate  and 
that  of  the  whole  human  race.  The  evidence 
also  is  very  much  less  impressive,  though,  as 
I  trust  I  have  shown,  it  is  not  entirely  negli- 
gible. These  creatures  are  in  any  case  remote 
from  us,  and  their  existence  is  of  little  more 
real  importance  than  that  of  strange  animals 
or  plants.  At  the  same  time,  the  perennial 
mystery  why  so  many  *' flowers  are  born  to 
blush  unseen,"  and  why  Nature  should  be 
so  lavish  with  gifts  which  human  beings 
cannot  use,  would  be  solved  if  we  under- 
stood that  there  were  other  orders  of  being 
150 


INDEPENDENT  EVIDENCE  FOR  FAIRIES 

which  used  the  same  earth  and  shared  its 
blessings.  It  is  at  the  lowest  an  interesting 
speculation  which  gives  an  added  charm  to 
the  silence  of  the  woods  and  the  wilderness 
of  the  moorland. 


151 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

From  the  foregoing  chapter  it  will  be 
clear  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  evidence 
which  cannot  easily  be  brushed  aside  as  to 
the  existence  of  these  little  creatures  before 
the  discovery  of  the  photographs.  These  va- 
rious witnesses  have  nothing  to  gain  by  their 
testimony,  and  it  is  not  tainted  by  any  mer- 
cenary consideration.  The  same  remark  ap- 
plies to  a  number  of  cases  which  w^ere  com- 
municated to  me  after  the  appearance  of  the 
articles  in  the  Strand.  One  or  two  were 
more  or  less  ingenious  practical  jokes,  but 
from  the  others  I  have  selected  some  which 
appear  to  be  altogether  reliable. 

The    gentleman   whom   I    have    already 

quoted  under  the  name  of  Lancaster — ^he 

who  was  so  doubtful  as  to  the  validity  of  the 

photographs — is  himself  a  seer.    He  says: 

152 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

**  Personally  I  should  describe  fairies  as 
being  about  2  feet  6  inches  to  3  feet  in  height, 
and  dressed  in  duffle  brown  clothes.  The 
nearest  approach  I  can  get  to  them  is  to  say 
that  they  are  spiritual  monkeys.  They  have 
the  active  brains  of  monkeys,  and  their  gen- 
eral instinct  is  to  avoid  mankind,  but  they 
are  capable  individually  of  becoming  ex- 
tremely attached  to  humans — or  a  human — 
but  at  any  time  they  may  bite  you,  like  a 
monkey,  and  repent  immediately  afterwards. 
They  have  thousands  of  years  of  collective 
experience,  call  it  inherited  memory'  if  you 
like,  but  no  reasoning  faculties.  They  are 
just  Peter  Pans — children  who  never  grow 
up. 

'^I  remember  asking  one  of  our  spirit 
group  how  one  could  get  into  touch  with  the 
brownies.  He  replied  that  when  you  could 
go  into  the  woods  and  call  the  brown  rab- 
bits to  you  the  other  brownies  will  also  come 
to  you.  Speaking  generally,  I  should  imag- 
ine that  anyone  who  has  had  any  truck  with 
fairies  must  have  obeyed  the  scriptural  in- 
junction to  'become  as  a  little  child,'  i.e.  he 
or  she  must  be  either  simple  or  a  Buddha.'* 

153 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

This  last  phrase  is  a  striking  one,  and  it 
is  curiously  confirmed  by  a  gentleman  named 
Matthews,  writing  on  January  3,  1921,  from 
San  Antonio,  Texas.  He  declared  that  his 
three  daughters,  now  married  women,  could 
all  see  fairies  before  the  age  of  puberty,  but 
never  after  it.  The  fairies  said  to  them: 
*'We  are  not  of  the  human  evolution.  Very 
few  humans  have  ever  visited  us.  Only  old 
souls  well  advanced  in  evolution  or  in  a  state 
of  sex  innocence  can  come  to  us."  This  re- 
peats independently  the  idea  of  Mr.  Lan- 
caster. 

These  children  seem  to  have  gone  into  a 
trance  state  before  they  found  themselves 
in  the  country  of  the  fairies — a  country  of 
intelligent  beings,  very  small,  12  to  18  inches 
high.  According  to  their  accounts,  they  were 
invited  to  attend  banquets  or  celebrations, 
excursions  on  beautiful  lakes,  etc.  Each 
child  was  able  to  entrance  instantly.  This 
they  always  did  when  they  visited  Fairyland, 
but  when  the  fairies  came  to  them,  which 
was  generally  in  the  twilight,  they  sat  in 
chairs  in  normal  state  watching  them  dance. 
The  father  adds :  '*My  own  children  learned 
154 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

in  this  way  to  dance,  so  that  at  local  enter- 
tainments audiences  were  delighted,  though 
they  never  knew  from  what  source  they 
learned." 

My  correspondent  does  not  say  whether 
there  is  a  marked  difference  between  the 
European  and  the  American  type  of  fairy. 
No  doubt,  if  these  results  are  confirmed  and 
followed  up,  there  will  be  an  exact  classi- 
fication in  the  future.  If  Bishop  Leadbeat- 
er's  clairvoyance  can  be  trusted,  there  is,  as 
will  afterwards  be  shown,  a  very  clear  dis- 
tinction between  the  elemental  life  of  va- 
rious countries,  as  well  as  many  varieties  in 
each  particular  country. 

One  remarkable  first-hand  case  of  seeing 
fairies  came  from  the  Rev.  Arnold  J. 
Holmes.    He  wrote: 

"Being  brought  up  in  the  Isle  of  Man 
one  breathed  the  atmosphere  of  supersti- 
tion (if  you  like  to  call  it),  the  simple,  beau- 
tiful faith  of  the  Manx  fisher  folk,  the  child- 
like trust  of  the  Manx  girls,  who  to  this  day 
will  not  forget  the  bit  of  wood  and  coal  put 
ready  at  the  side  of  the  fireplace  in  case 

155 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

the  *little  people*  call  and  need  a  fire.  A 
good  husband  is  the  ultimate  reward,  and 
neglect  in  this  respect  a  bad  husband  or  no 
husband  at  all.  The  startling  phenomena  oc- 
curred on  my  journey  home  from  Peel  Town 
at  night  to  St.  Mark's  (where  I  was  Incum- 
bent). 

*' After  passing  Sir  Hall  Caine's  beautiful 
residence,  Greeba  Castle,  my  horse — a  spir- 
ited one — suddenly  stopped  dead,  and  look- 
ing ahead  I  saw  amid  the  obscure  light  and 
misty  moonbeams  what  appeared  to  be  a 
small  army  of  indistinct  figures — very  small, 
clad  in  gossamer  garments.  They  appeared 
to  be  perfectly  happy,  scampering  and  trip- 
ping along  the  road,  having  come  from  the 
direction  of  the  beautiful  sylvan  glen  of 
Greeba  and  St.  Trinian's  Roofless  Church. 
The  legend  is  that  it  has  ever  been  the  fair- 
ies' haunt,  and  when  an  attempt  has  been 
made  on  two  occasions  to  put  a  roof  on,  the 
fairies  have  removed  all  the  work  during 
the  night,  and  for  a  century  no  further  at- 
tempts have  been  made.  It  has  therefore 
been  left  to  the  *  little  people'  who  claimed 
it  as  their  own. 
156 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

*'I  watched  spellbound,  my  horse  half  mad 
with  fear.  The  little  happy  army  then 
turned  in  the  direction  of  Witch's  Hill,  and 
mounted  a  mossy  bank;  one  *  little  man'  of 
larger  stature  than  the  rest,  about  14  inches 
high,  stood  at  attention  until  all  had  passed 
him  dancing,  singing,  with  happy  abandon, 
across  the  Valley  fields  towards  St.  John's 
Mount." 

The  wide  distribution  of  the  fairies  may 
be  judged  by  the  following  extremely  inter- 
esting narrative  from  Mrs.  Hardy,  the  wife 
of  a  settler  in  the  Maori  districts  of  New 
Zealand : 

*' After  reading  about  what  others  have 
seen  I  am  encouraged  to  give  you  an  experi- 
ence of  my  own,  which  happened  about  five 
years  ago.  Will  you  please  excuse  my  men* 
tioning  a  few  domestic  details  connected 
with  the  story?  Our  home  is  built  on  the 
top  of  a  ridge.  The  ground  was  levelled  for 
some  distance  to  allow  for  sites  for  the  house, 
buildings,  lawns,  etc.  The  ground  on  either 
side  slopes  steeplj^  down  to  an  orchard  on 
the  left,  and  shrubbery  and  paddock  on  the 

157 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

right,  bounded  by  the  main  road.  One  eve- 
ning when  it  was  getting  dusk  I  went  into 
the  yard  to  hang  the  tea-towels  on  the 
clothes-line.  As  I  stepped  off  the  verandah, 
I  heard  a  sound  of  soft  galloping  coming 
from  the  direction  of  the  orchard.  I  thought 
I  must  be  mistaken,  and  that  the  sound  came 
from  the  road,  where  the  Maoris  often  gal- 
lop their  horses.  I  crossed  the  yard  to  get 
the  pegs,  and  heard  the  galloping  coming 
nearer.  I  walked  to  the  clothes-line,  and 
stood  under  it  with  my  arms  uplifted  to  peg 
the  towel  on  the  line,  when  I  was  aware  of 
the  galloping  close  behind  me,  and  suddenly 
a  little  figure,  riding  a  tiny  pony,  rode  right 
under  my  uplifted  arms.  I  looked  round, 
to  see  that  I  was  surrounded  by  eight  or  ten 
tiny  figures  on  tiny  ponies  like  dwarf  Shet- 
lands.  The  little  figure  who  came  so  close 
to  me  stood  out  quite  clearly  in  the  light  that 
came  from  the  window,  but  he  had  his  back 
to  it,  and  I  could  not  see  his  face.  The  faces 
of  the  others  were  quite  brown,  also  the 
ponies  were  brown.  If  they  wore  clothes 
they  were  close-fitting  like  a  child's  jersey 
suit.  They  were  like  tiny  dwarfs,  or  chil- 
158 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

dren  of  about  two  years  of  age.  I  was  very 
startled,  and  called  out,  'Goodness!  what  is 
this  V  I  think  I  must  have  frightened  them, 
for  at  the  sound  of  my  voice  they  all  rode 
through  the  rose  trellis  across  the  drive,  and 
down  the  shrubbery.  I  heard  the  soft  gal- 
loping dying  away  into  the  distance,  and  lis- 
tened until  the  sound  was  gone,  then  went 
into  the  house.  My  daughter,  who  has  had 
several  psychic  experiences,  said  to  me: 
*  Mother,  how  white  and  startled  you  look! 
What  have  you  seen?  And  who  were  you 
speaking  to  just  now  in  the  yard?'  I  said, 
*I  have  seen  the  fairies  ride!'  " 

The  little  fairy  horses  are  mentioned  by 
several  writers,  and  yet  it  must  be  admitted 
that  their  presence  makes  the  whole  situa- 
tion far  more  complicated  and  difficult  to 
understand.  If  horses,  why  not  dogs  ?  And 
we  find  ourselves  in  a  whole  new  world  upon 
the  fairy  scale.  I  have  convinced  myself 
that  there  is  overwhelming  evidence  for  the 
fairies,  but  I  have  by  no  means  been  able  to 
assure  myself  of  these  adjuncts. 

The  following  letter  from  a  young  lady  in 

159 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

Canada,  daughter  of  one  of  the  leading  citi- 
zens of  Montreal,  and  personally  known  to 
me,  is  interesting  on  account  of  the  enclosed 
photograph  here  reproduced.    She  says : 

**The  enclosed  photograph  was  taken  this 
summer  at  Waterville,  New  Hampshire, 
with  a  2a  Brownie  camera  (portrait  lens  at- 
tached) by  Alverda,  eleven  years  old.  The 
father  is  able,  clear-headed,  enthusiastic  on 
golf  and  billiards ;  the  mother  on  Japanese 
art;  neither  interested  in  psychic  matters 
much.  The  child  has  been  frail  and  imagi- 
native, but  sweet  and  incapable  of  deceit. 

*'The  mother  tells  me  she  was  with  the 
child  when  the  picture  was  taken.  The  mush- 
rooms pleased  the  little  girl,  and  she  knelt 
down  and  photographed  them.  As  an  in- 
dication of  their  ordinary  size,  they  are 
Amainta  muscaria. 

**  There  was  no  such  figure  to  be  seen  as 
appears  in  the  picture. 

"There  was  no  double  exposure.    The  pic- 
ture astonished  them  when  developed.    The 
parents  guarantee  its  honesty,  but  are  mys- 
tified. 
160 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 


if 


'Do  you  think  shadows,  etc.,  can  explain 
it?  I  think  the  line  of  the  right  shoulder 
and  arm  especially  are  too  decisive  to  be  thus 
brushed  away. " 

I  rather  agree  with  the  writer,  but  it  is  a 
point  which  each  reader  can  decide  for  him- 
self upon  examination  of  the  photograph. 
It  is  certainly  very  vague  after  the  York- 
shire examples. 

New  Zealand  would  appear  to  be  quite  a 
fairy  centre,  for  I  have  another  letter  from 
a  lady  in  those  beautiful  islands,  which  is 
hardly  less  interesting  and  definite  than  the 
one  already  quoted.    She  says : 

*'I  have  seen  fairies  in  all  parts  of  New 
Zealand,  but  especially  in  the  fern-clad  gul- 
lies of  the  North  Island.  Most  of  my  un- 
foldment  for  mediumship  was  carried  out 
in  Auckland,  and  during  that  time  I  spent 
hours  in  my  garden,  and  saw  the  fairies 
most  often  in  the  evening  just  after  sun- 
set. From  observation  I  notice  they  usu- 
ally lived  or  else  appeared  about  the  peren- 
nial plants.  I  saw  brown  fairies  and  green 
fairies,  and  they  all  had  wings  of  a  filmy 

161 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

appearance.  I  used  to  talk  to  them  and 
ask  them  to  make  special  pet  plants  and  cut- 
tings I  put  in  the  garden  grow  well,  and  I 
am  sure  they  did,  by  the  results  I  got.  Since 
I  came  to  Sydney,  I  have  also  seen  the  green 
fairies.  I  tried  an  experiment  last  spring. 
I  had  some  pheasant-eye  narcissus  growing 
in  the  garden.  I  saw  the  green  fairies  about 
them.  I  transplanted  one  of  the  bulbs  to  a 
pot  when  half -grown,  and  took  it  with  me 
when  I  went  away  for  a  short  holiday.  I 
asked  the  fairies  to  keep  it  growing.  I 
watched  it  closely  every  evening — a  green- 
clad  fairy,  sometimes  two  or  three  of  them, 
would  appear  on  the  pot  under  the  plant  and 
whatever  they  did  to  it  during  the  night  I 
do  not  know,  but  next  morning  it  was  very 
much  bigger,  and,  although  transplanted, 
etc.,  it  flowered  three  weeks  before  those  in 
the  garden.  I  am  now  living  at  Rochdale, 
Sydney,  with  friends  both  Australians  and 
Spiritualists,  and  they  also  have  seen  the 
fairies  from  childhood  up.  I  am  sure  ani- 
mals see  them.  The  fairies  appear  every 
evening  in  a  little  wild  corner  of  the  garden 
we  leave  for  them,  and  our  cat  sits  and 
162 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

watches  them  intently,  but  never  attempts 
to  spring  at  them  as  he  does  at  other  moving 
objects.  If  you  care  to  make  use  of  the  in- 
formation contained  in  this  letter,  you  are 
welcome  to  do  so. ' ' 

I  had  another  interesting  letter  from  Mrs. 
Koberts,  of  Dunedin,  one  of  the  most  gifted 
women  in  psychic  matters  whom  I  met  dur- 
ing my  Australian  wanderings,  in  which  she 
describes,  as  the  last  writer  has  done,  the 
intimate  connection  between  these  elemental 
forms  of  life  and  the  flowers,  asserting  that 
she  has  continually  seen  them  tending  the 
plants  in  her  own  garden. 

From  Ireland  I  received  several  fairy 
stories  which  seemed  to  be  honestly  told,  even 
if  some  margin  must  be  left  for  errors  of  ob- 
servation. One  of  these  seems  to  link  up 
the  fairy  kingdom  with  spiritual  communi- 
cation, for  the  writer,  Miss  Winter,  of  Blar- 
ney, in  Cork,  says; 

*'We  received  communications  from  a 
fairy  named  Bebel  several  times,  one  of  them 
lasting  nearly  an  hour.    The  communication 

163 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

was  as  decided  and  swift  as  from  the  most 
powerful  spirit.  He  told  us  tliat  he  was  a 
Leprechaun  (male),  but  that  in  a  ruined 
fort  near  us  dwelt  the  Pixies.  Our  demesne 
had  been  the  habitation  of  Leprechauns  al- 
ways, and  they  with  their  Queen  Picel, 
mounted  on  her  gorgeous  dragon-fly,  found 
all  they  required  in  our  grounds. 

*'He  asked  most  lovingly  about  my  little 
grandchildren,  who  visit  us  frequently,  and 
since  then  he  has  been  in  the  habit  of  (Com- 
municating with  them,  when  we  have  yielded 
the  table  to  them  entirely,  and  just  listened 
to  the  pure  fun  he  and  they  were  having  to- 
gether. He  told  them  that  the  fairies  find 
it  quite  easy  to  talk  to  the  rabbits,  and  that 
they  disliked  the  dogs  because  they  chased 
them.  They  have  great  fun  with  the  hens, 
on  whose  backs  they  ride,  but  they  do  not 
like  them  because  they  *  j  eer '  at  them.  When 
he  mentioned  the  old  fort,  I  thought  he  re- 
ferred to  Blarney  Castle,  not  far  away,  but 
on  relating  the  incident  to  a  farmer  ^s  daugh- 
ter, whose  family  has  been  in  the  neighbour- 
hood for  a  very  long  time,  she  informed  me 
that  a  labourer's  cottage  at  the  entrance  to 
164 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

our  avenue  is  built  on  the  site  of  an  old 
fort,  information  absolutely  new  to  us." 

A  few  more  may  be  added  to  my  list  of 
witnesses,  which  might  be  greatly  extended. 
Miss  Hall,  of  Bristol,  writes : 

*'I,  too,  have  seen  fairies,  but  never  until 
now  have  I  dared  to  mention  it  for  fear  of 
ridicule.  It  was  many  years  ago.  I  was 
quite  a  child  of  six  or  seven  years,  and  then, 
as  now,  passionately  fond  of  all  flowers, 
which  always  seem  to  me  living  creatures. 
I  was  seated  in  the  middle  of  a  road  in  some 
cornfields,  playing  with  a  group  of  poppies, 
and  never  shall  I  forget  my  utter  astonish- 
ment at  seeing  a  funny  little  man  playing 
hide-and-seek  among  these  flowers  to  amuse 
me,  as  I  thought.  He  was  quick  as  a  dart. 
I  watched  him  for  quite  a  long  time,  then  he 
disappeared.  He  seemed  a  merry  little  fel- 
low, but  I  cannot  ever  remember  his  face. 
In  colour  he  was  a  sage-green,  his  limbs  were 
round  and  had  the  appearance  of  geranium 
stalks.  He  did  not  seem  to  be  clothed,  and 
was  about  three  inches  high  and  slender.    I 

165 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

often  looked  for  him  again,  but  without  suc- 
cess." 

Mr.  J.  Foot  Young,  the  well-known  water 
diviner,  writes : 

"Some  years  ago  I  was  one  of  a  party  in- 
vited to  spend  the  afternoon  on  the  lovely 
slopes  of  Oxef  ord  Hill,  in  the  county  of  Dor- 
set. The  absence  of  both  trees  and  hedges 
in  this  locality  enables  one  to  see  without 
obstruction  for  long  distances.  I  was  walk- 
ing with  my  companion,  who  lives  in  the  lo- 
cality, some  little  distance  from  the  main 
party,  when  to  my  astonishment  I  saw  a 
number  of  what  I  thought  to  be  very  small 
children,  about  a  score  in  number,  and  all 
dressed  in  little  gaily-coloured  short  skirts, 
their  legs  being  bare.  Their  hands  were 
joined,  and  all  held  up,  as  they  merrily 
danced  round  in  a  perfect  circle.  We  stood 
watching  them,  when  in  an  instant  they  all 
vanished  from  our  sight.  My  companion 
told  me  they  were  fairies,  and  that  they  often 
came  to  that  particular  part  to  hold  their 
revels.  It  may  be  our  presence  disturbed 
them." 
166 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

Mrs.  Ethel  Enid  Wilson,  of  Worthing, 
writes : 

**I  quite  believe  in  fairies.  Of  course, 
they  are  really  nature  spirits.  I  have  often 
seen  them  on  fine  sunny  days  playing  in  the 
sea,  and  riding  on  the  waves,  but  no  one  I 
have  ever  been  with  at  the  time  has  been 
able  to  see  them,  excepting  once  my  little 
nephews  and  nieces  saw  them  too.  They 
were  like  little  dolls,  quite  small,  with  beauti- 
ful bright  hair,  and  they  were  constantly 
moving  and  dancing  about." 

Mrs.  Rose,  of  Southend-on-Sea,  told  us  in 
a  chat  on  the  subject : 

*'I  think  I  have  always  seen  fairies.  I  see 
them  constantly  here  in  the  shrubbery  by 
the  sea.  They  congregate  under  the  trees 
and  float  around  about  the  trees,  and  gnomes 
come  around  to  protect  them.  The  gnomes 
are  like  little  old  men,  with  little  green  caps, 
and  their  clothes  are  generally  neutral 
green.  The  fairies  themselves  are  in  light 
draperies.  I  have  also  seen  them  in  the  con- 
servatory of  my  house,  floating  about  among 

167 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

the  flowers  and  plants.  The  fairies  appear 
to  be  perpetually  playing,  excepting  when 
they  go  to  rest  on  the  turf  or  in  a  tree,  and  I 
once  saw  a  group  of  gnomes  standing  on 
each  others'  shoulders,  like  gymnasts  on  the 
stage.  They  seemed  to  be  living  as  much  as 
I  am.  It  is  not  imagination.  I  have  seen 
the  gnomes  arranging  a  sort  of  mo^s  bed  for 
the  fairies,  just  like  a  mother-bird  putting 
her  chicks  to  bed.  I  don't  hear  any  sounds 
from  the  gnomes  or  fairies,  but  they  always 
look  happy,  as  if  they  were  having  a  real 
good  time. 


5) 


Miss  Eva  Longbottom,  L.R.A.M.,  A.R.C. 

M.,  of  Bristol,  a  charming  vocalist,  who  has 
been  blind  from  birth,  told  us  in  an  inter- 
view: 

**I  have  seen  many  fairies  with  my  mind's 
eyes  (that  is,  clairvoyantly ) .  They  are  of 
various  kinds,  the  ones  I  see.  The  music 
fairies  are  very  beautiful.  'Argent'  de- 
scribes them,  for  they  make  you  think  of  sil- 
ver, and  they  have  dulcet  silvery  voices. 
They  speak  and  sing,  but  more  in  sound  than 
in  distinct  words — a  language  of  their  own. 
168 


SOME  SUBSEQUENT  CASES 

a  fairy  tongue.  Their  music  is  a  thing  we 
cannot  translate.  It  exists  in  itself .  I  don't 
think  Mendelssohn  has  truly  caught  it,  but 
Mr.  Coleridge-Taylor's  music  reminds  me  of 
the  music  I  have  heard  from  the  fairies 
themselves ;  his  fairy  ballads  are  very  charm- 
ing. 

"Then  there  are  dancing  fairies.  Their 
dancing  is  dainty  and  full  of  grace,  a  sweet 
old  style  of  dance,  without  any  tangles  in  it. 
I  am  generally  alone  when  I  see  them,  not 
necessarily  in  a  woodland,  but  wherever  the 
atmosphere  is  poetical.  They  are  quite  real. 

''Another  kind  is  the  poem  fairies.  They 
are  more  ethereal,  and  of  a  violet  shade. 
If  you  could  imagine  Perdita  in  the  Mid- 
summer  Night ^s  Dream,  translated  from  the 
stage  into  a  real  fairy,  you  would  have  a 
good  idea  of  the  poem  fairy.  She  has  a 
very  beautiful  girlish  character.  The  same 
might  be  said  of  Miranda,  but  she  is  more 
sentimental. 

"The  colour  fairies  are  also  most  interest- 
ing. If  you  can  imagine  each  colour  trans- 
formed into  a  fairy  you  may  get  an  idea  of 
what  they  are  like.    They  are  in  airy  forms 

169 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

and  dance  and  sing  in  the  tone  of  their  col- 
ours. I  have  not  seen  any  browTiies,  as  I 
do  not  take  so  much  interest  in  the  domestic 
side  of  the  fairies'  life. 

''When  I  was  young  I  had  it  so  much  im- 
pressed on  me  that  fairies  were  imaginary 
beings  that  I  would  not  believe  in  them,  but 
when  I  was  about  fourteen  I  began  to  real- 
ize them,  and  now  I  love  them.  Perhaps  it 
was  the  deeper  study  of  the  arts  that  brought 
them  to  me.  I  have  felt  a  symx)athetic  vi- 
bration for  them  and  they  have  made  me  feel 
that  we  were  friends.  I  have  had  a  great 
deal  of  happiness  and  good  fortune  in  my 
life,  and  perhaps  I  can  attribute  some  of 
that  to  the  fairies.'' 

These  last  examples  I  owe  to  Mr.  John 
Lewis,  Editor  of  the  Psychic  Gazette,  who 
collected  them.  I  think  I  may  fairly  claim 
that  if  all  of  them  be  added  to  those  which  I 
have  quoted  in  my  original  article,  and  these 
again  be  linked  up  with  the  Cottingley  chil- 
dren and  photographs,  we  are  in  a  position 
to  present  our  case  with  some  confidence  to 
the  public. 
170 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  THEOSOPHIC  VIEW  OF  FADRIES 

Of  all  religions  and  pMlosopliies  in  West- 
ern lands  I  know  none  save  that  ancient 
teaching  now  called  Theosophy  which  has 
any  place  in  it  for  elemental  forms  of  life. 
Therefore,  since  we  have  established  some 
sort  of  independent  case  for  their  existence, 
it  is  well  that  we  should  examine  carefully 
what  they  teach  and  see  how  far  it  fits  in 
with  what  we  have  been  able  to  gather  or 
to  demonstrate. 

There  is  no  one  who  has  a  better  right  to 
speak  upon  the  point  than  my  co-worker, 
Mr.  E.  L.  Gardner,  since  he  is  both  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  fairies  and  a  considerable  au- 
thority upon  theosophic  teaching.  I  am 
glad,  therefore,  to  be  able  to  include  some 
notes  from  his  pen. 

"For  the  most  part,"  he  writes,  ''amid 
the  busy  commercialism  of  modern  times, 

171 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

the  fact  of  their  existence  has  faded  to  a 
shadow,  and  a  most  delightful  and  charm- 
ing field  of  nature  study  has  too  long  been 
veiled.  In  this  twentieth  century  there  is 
promise  of  the  world  stepping  out  of  some 
of  its  darker  shadows.  Maybe  it  is  an  indi- 
cation that  we  are  reaching  the  silver  lining 
of  the  clouds  when  we  find  ourselves  sud- 
denly presented  with  actual  photographs  of 
these  enchanting  little  creatures — relegated 
long  since  to  the  realm  of  the  imaginary  and 
fanciful. 

*'Now,  what  are  the  fairies'? 

"First,  it  must  be  clearly  understood  that 
all  that  can  be  photographed  must  of  neces- 
sity be  physical.  Nothing  of  a  subtler  order 
could  in  the  nature  of  things  affect  the  sen- 
sitive plate.  So-called  spirit  photographs, 
for  instance,  imply  necessarily  a  certain  de- 
gree of  materialization  before  the  'form' 
could  come  within  the  range  even  of  the  most 
sensitive  of  films.  But  well  within  our  phys- 
ical octave  there  are  degrees  of  density  that 
elude  ordinary  vision.  Just  as  there  are 
many  stars  in  the  heavens  recorded  by  the 
camera  that  no  human  eye  has  ever  seen  di- 
172 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW    OF    FAIRIES 

rectly,  so  there  is  a  vast  array  of  living  crea- 
tures whose  bodies  are  of  that  rare  tenuity 
and  subtlety  from  our  point  of  view  that  they 
lie  beyond  the  range  of  our  normal  senses. 
Many  children  and  sensitives  see  them,  and 
hence  our  fairy  lore — all  founded  on  actual 
and  now  demonstrable  fact! 

"Fairies  use  bodies  of  a  density  that  we 
should  describe,  in  non-technical  language, 
as  of  a  lighter  than  gaseous  nature,  but  we 
should  be  entirely  wrong  if  we  thought  them 
in  consequence  unsubstantial.  In  their  own 
way  they  are  as  real  as  we  are,  and  perform 
functions  in  connection  with  plant  life  of 
an  important  and  most  fascinating  charac- 
ter. To  hint  at  one  phase — many  a  reader 
will  have  remarked  on  the  lasting  freshness 
and  beauty  of  flowers  cut  and  tended  by  one 
person,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  their  com- 
paratively short  life  when  in  the  care  of  an- 
other. The  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
the  kindly  devotion  of  the  one  person  and 
the  comparative  indifference  of  the  other, 
which  emotions  affect  keenly  the  nature  spir- 
its in  whose  immediate  care  the  flowers  are. 

173 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

Their  response  to  lovej  and  tenderness  is 
quickly  evidenced  in  their  charges. 

*' Fairies  are  not  born  and  do  not  die  as 
we  do,  though  they  have  their  periods  of 
outer  activity  and  retirement.  Allied  to  the 
lepidoptera,  or  butterfly  genus,  of  our  fa- 
miliar acquaintance  rather  than  to  the  mam- 
malian line,  they  partake  of  certain  charac- 
teristics that  are  obvious.  There  is  little  or 
no  mentality  awake — simply  a  gladsome,  ir- 
responsible joyousness  of  life  that  is  abun- 
dantly in  evidence  in  their  enchanting  aban- 
don. The  diminutive  human  form,  so  widely 
assumed,  is  doubtless  due,  at  least  in  a  great 
measure,  to  the  powerful  influence  of  hmnan 
thought,  the  strongest  creative  power  in  our 
cycle. 

''In  the  investigations  I  have  pursued  in 
Yorkshire,  the  New  Forest,  and  Scotland, 
many  fairy  lovers  and  observers  have  been 
interviewed  and  their  accounts  compared. 
In  most  cases  I  was  interested  to  note  that 
my  share  in  making  public  the  photographs 
of  Cottingley  was  the  worst  sort  of  intro- 
duction imaginable.  Few  fairy  lovers  have 
looked  with  favour  on  that.  Reproaches 
174 


THE    THEOSOPHIC  'VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

have  been  frequent  and  couched  in  no  meas- 
ured terms,  for  the  photographs  have  been 
resented  as  an  unwarranted  intrusion  and 
desecration.  Only  after  earnest  assurances 
as  to  my  own  attitude  could  I  get  farther  and 
obtain  those  intimate  confidences  that  I  have 
compared  and  checked  and  pieced  together 
and  am  at  liberty  to  narrate  here. 

*'The  function  of  the  nature  spirit  of 
woodland,  meadow,  and  garden,  indeed  in 
connection  with  vegetation  generally,  is  to 
furnish  the  vital  connecting  link  between 
the  stimulating  energy  of  the  sun  and  the 
raw  material  of  the  form.  That  growth  of 
a  plant  which  we  regard  as  the  customary 
and  inevitable  result  of  associating  the  three 
factors  of  sun,  seed,  and  soil  would  never 
take  place  if  the  fairy  builders  were  absent. 
We  do  not  obtain  music  from  an  organ  by 
associating  the  wind,  a  composer's  score,  and 
the  instrument — the  vital  link  supplied  by 
the  organist,  though  he  may  be  unseen,  is 
needed — and  similarly  the  nature  spirits  are 
essential  to  the  production  of  the  plant. 

"The  Fairy  Body. — The  normal  working 
body  of  the  gnome  and  fairy  is  not  of  human 

175 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

nor  of  any  other  definite  form,  and  herein 
lies  the  explanation  of  much  that  has  been 
puzzling  concerning  the  nature-spirit  king- 
dom generally.  They  have  no  clean-cut  shape 
normally,  and  one  can  only  describe  them 
as  small,  hazy,  and  somewhat  luminous 
clouds  of  colour  with  a  brighter  spark-like 
nucleus.  As  such  they  cannot  be  defined  in 
terms  of  form  any  more  than  one  can  so  de- 
scribe a  tongue  of  flame.  In  such  a  body 
they  fill  their  office,  working  inside  the  plant 
structure.  *  Magnetic'  is  the  only  word  that 
can  describe  their  method.  Instantly  re- 
sponsive to  stimulus,  they  appear  to  be  in- 
fluenced from  two  directions — the  physical 
outer  conditions  prevailing  and  an  inner  in- 
telligent urge.  These  two  influences  deter- 
mine their  working  activity.  Some,  and 
these  are  by  far  the  most  numerous,  work  on 
cell  construction  and  organization,  and  are 
comparatively  small  when  assuming  the  hu- 
man form,  being  two  to  three  inches  high. 
Others  are  concerned  exclusively  with  root 
development  below  ground,  while  others  are 
apparently  specialists  in  colour  and  *  paint' 
the  flowers  by  means  of  the  streaming  mo- 
176 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW    OF    FAIRIES 

tion  of  their  cloud-like  bodies.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  little  trace  of  any  selective  or 
discriminating  work  done  individually.  They 
all  seem  actuated  by  a  common  influence 
that  affects  them  continuously,  and  which 
strongl}^  suggests  the  same  tyi^e  of  instinc- 
tive prompting  that  marks  the  bee  and  ant. 
*'The  Human  Form. — Though  the  nature 
spirit  must  be  regarded  as  practically  irre- 
sponsible, living  a  gladsome,  joyous,  and  de- 
lightfully untrammelled  life,  each  member 
appears  to  possess  at  least  a  temporary  defi- 
nite individuality  at  times,  and  to  rejoice  in 
it.  The  diminutive  human  form — sometimes 
grotesque,  as  in  the  case  of  brownie  and 
gnome,  sometimes  beautifully  graceful,  as 
in  the  surface-fairy  variety — if  conditions 
allow,  is  assumed  in  a  flash.  For  a  while 
it  is  retained,  and  it  seems  clear  that  the 
definite  and  comparatively  concrete  shape 
affords  pleasure  above  the  ordinary.  There 
is  no  organization  perceptible,  as  one  might 
perhaps  hastily  infer.  The  content  of  the 
body  still  appears  homogeneous,  though 
somewhat  denser,  and  the  shape  of  'human' 
is  usually  only  seen  when  not  at  work.    The 

177 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

nature  spirit  so  clothed  indulges  in  active 
movement  in  skipping  and  dancing  gestures 
and  exhibits  a  gay  abandon  suggestive  of  the 
keenest  delight  in  the  exi^erience.  It  is  evi- 
dently 'time  o:ff'  and  play  for  it,  though  its 
work  seems  charming  enough.  If  disturbed 
or  alarmed  the  change  back  to  the  slightly 
subtler  vehicle,  the  magnetic  cloud,  is  as  sud- 
den as  the  birth.  What  determines  the  shape 
assumed  and  how  the  transformation  is  ef- 
fected is  not  clear.  One  may  speculate  as 
to  the  influence  of  human  thought,  individ- 
ual or  in  the  mass,  and  quite  probably  the 
explanation  when  found  will  include  this 
influence  as  a  factor — but  I  am  intent  here 
not  on  theorizing,  but  on  a  narrative  of  ob- 
served happenings.  One  thing  is  clear — 
the  nature-spirit  form  is  objective — objec- 
tive, that  is,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  apply 
that  term  to  a  stone,  a  tree,  and  a  human 
body. 

"Fairy  Wings. — The  wings  are  a  feature 
that  one  would  hardly  expect  to  find  in  con- 
junction with  arms.  In  this  respect  the  in- 
sect type,  with  its  several  limbs  and  two  or 
more  wings,  is  a  nearer  model.  But  there  is 
178 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

no  articulation  and  no  venation,  and  more- 
over the  wings  are  not  used  for  flying. 
*  Streaming  emanations '  is  the  only  descrip- 
tion one  can  apply.  In  some  varieties,  par- 
ticularly the  sylphs,  the  streamers  surround 
the  body,  as  by  a  luminous  aura  sprayed  to 
a  feathery  mist.  I  was  told  that  the  earlier 
and  more  elaborate  Red  Indian  headdresses 
must  have  been  inspired  from  this  source,  so 
suggestive  are  they,  though  the  best  of  them 
are  but  poor  copies  of  the  originals. 

**FooD. — There  is  no  food  taken,  as  we 
should  regard  it.  Nourishment,  usually 
abundant  and  ample  for  sustenance,  is  ab- 
sorbed directly  by  a  rhythmic  breathing  or 
pulse.  Resource  to  the  magnetic  bath  on  oc- 
casion appears  to  be  their  only  special 
restorative.  The  perfume  of  flowers  is 
delighted  in,  and,  reversely,  disagreeable 
odours  repel.  This  is  one  of  many  reasons, 
besides  timidity,  why  human  society  is  usu- 
ally avoided,  there  being  little  that  is  invit- 
ing in  that  connection  for  them,  and  much 
that  is  obnoxious. 

*' Birth,  Death,  and  Sex. — Any  estimate 
of  length  of  life  is  misleading,  because  com- 

179 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

parison  with  ourselves  cannot  be  made. 
There  is  no  real  birth  nor  death,  as  we  un- 
derstand the  terms — simply  a  gradual  emer- 
gence from,  and  a  return  to,  a  subtler  state 
of  being.  This  process  takes  some  time, 
probably  years  in  certain  varieties,  and  their 
life  on  the  denser  level,  corresponding  to  our 
adult  period,  may  be  as  long  as  the  average 
human.  There  is  nothing  definite  in  all  this, 
however,  except  the  fact  of  the  gradual  emer- 
gence and  return.  There  is  no  sex,  as  we 
should  regard  it,  though,  so  far  as  I  can 
gather,  there  is  division  and  sub-division  of 
'body'  at  a  much  subtler  and  earlier  level 
than  that  usually  sensed.  This  process 
seems  to  correspond  to  the  fission  and  bud- 
ding of  our  familiar  simple  animalcules, 
with  the  addition,  towards  the  end  of  the 
cycle,  of  fusion  or  reassembly  into  the  larger 
unit. 

*' Speech  and  Gestuee. — Below  the  sylph 
there  ajopears  to  be  nothing,  or  very  little, 
in  the  way  of  a  language  of  words.  Com- 
munication is  possible  by  inflexion  and  ges- 
ture, much  as  the  same  can  be  exercised  with 
domestic  animals.  Indeed,  the  relation  of 
180 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

human  with  the  lower  nature  spirits  seems 
to  be  about  on  a  par  with  that  of  kittens,  pup- 
pies, and  birds.  Yet  there  is  abundant  evi- 
dence of  a  tone  language  among  them.  Music 
by  pipe  and  flute  is  common,  though  to  the 
human  ear  of  the  quaintest  character — ^but 
whether  the  instrument  or  the  voice  is  the 
real  source  I  cannot  yet  determine.  The 
higher  orders  of  nature  spirits  are  adding 
mentality  to  the  emotional  development,  and 
speech  with  them  is  possible.  Their  attitude 
to  ordinary  humanity  is  unfriendly  rather 
than  well  disposed,  and  often  hostile,  aris- 
ing probably  from  our  utter  disregard  of 
the  amenities.  I  am  beginning  to  see  sense 
and  reason  in  the  *  burnt-offerings'  of  yore. 
Pollution  of  the  atmosphere  is  a  horror  to 
the  sylphs  and  deeply  resented.  An  ancient 
saying  I  had  seen  somewhere  came  to  mind 
when  discussing  the  beautiful  air-spirits  and 
their  work :  *  Agni  (Fire)  is  the  mouth  of  the 
gods ! '  Our  sanitary  and  burial  customs  are 
doubtless  still  capable  of  improvement !  One 
fairy  lover  said  to  me  gleefully,  *Ah,  well! 
you  will  never  be  able  to  get  photographs  of 
the  sylphs — ^they  know  too  much  for  you!' 

181 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

If  we  can  establish  friendly  relations  with 
them,  though,  the  weather  may  be  ours,  if 
that  be  desirable  I 

^' Cause  and  Effect. — The  dissection  and 
examination  of  vegetable  forms,  however 
exhaustive,  is  but  an  analysis  of  effects.  No 
adequate  cause  is  therein  to  be  found  any 
more  than  a  dissection  of  a  sculpture  will 
disclose  the  craftsman.  The  amazing  skill 
in  evidence  in  the  plant  kingdom  in  construc- 
tion, adaptation,  and  adornment  demand 
the  labour  of  workman,  mechanic,  and  artist. 
Their  recognition  in  the  nature  spirits  fills 
the  vague  hiatus  between  the  sun's  energy 
and  the  material  wrought.  On  our  own  hu- 
man side  of  the  line  the  finding  of  two  pieces 
of  wood  nailed  together  would  unmistakably 
point  to  a  workman  of  sorts,  yet  we  are  ac- 
customed to  gaze  with  wonder  and  admira- 
tion on  the  exquisitely  built  forms  of  a  whole 
kingdom,  and  murmur  'evolutionary  proc- 
esses,' or  'the  hand  of  God,'  according  to 
our  temperament.  An  agent  is  necessary  on 
the  one  side  and  no  less  on  the  other. 

''Mode  of  Working. — The  feature  that 
will  appeal  to  every  nature  lover  interested 
182 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW    OF    FAIRIES 

in  the  vital  processes  of  plant  life  is  the 
craftsmanship  of  the  nature-spirit  agent. 
An  inference,  if  it  be  simple  enough,  often 
escapes  us,  though  in  this  case  the  experi- 
ences gathered  of  our  own  human  labour 
suggest  the  analogy  vividly.  An  analogy 
with  a  difference,  however,  for  the  hidden 
manner  of  work  of  the  nature  spirit  is  in 
most  respects  the  exact  opposite  in  charac- 
ter to  our  own.  In  this  physical  world  we 
labour  with  hands  and  tools,  and  work  con- 
sistently on  exteriors,  always  indeed  han- 
dling and  applying  our  material  from  the 
outside.  Addition,  accretion,  is  our  construc- 
tive method.  We  find  ourselves  made  that 
way,  and  it  is  our  characteristic  mode  of 
approach.  The  nature  spirits  operate  from 
the  interior,  working  from  a  centre  out- 
wards. Their  aim  appears  to  be  to  achieve 
an  ever-closer  touch  with  the  environment, 
and  to  that  end  the  driving  urge  of  their  ac- 
tivity is  how  best  to  adapt  the  means  to  their 
hand.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  the  cause  of  va- 
riety in  nature  in  view  of  this  striving  en- 
deavour to  organize  the  vehicle  that  the  na- 
ture spirits  use,  and  so  gain  in  endless  ways 

183 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

a  closer  touch.  Flower  colouring,  mimicry, 
seed  protection  and  distribution,  defensive 
and  aggressive  measures,  all  the  thousand- 
and-one  devices  employed  to  attain  an  end, 
point  to  an  intelligence  working  through 
agents  who,  at  their  own  level,  are  often  in 
more  or  less  antagonistic  relation  with  each 
other.  Variety  and  difference  is  as  much  in 
evidence  as  among  humanity,  and  makes  for 
that  diversity  of  form  and  custom  that  we 
find  on  our  side  so  fruitful  of  experience. 
In  the  tilling  of  the  soil  and  the  culture  of 
plant  life  for  our  own  purposes  we  have 
worked  intimately  together — though  uncon- 
sciously. The  efforts  of  nature  spirits  work- 
ing by  themselves  without  our  assistance 
produce  the  wild  flowers  and  berries  of  our 
woodlands  and  meadows,  while  partnership 
with  the  human  yields  a  record  of  cultivated 
cereal,  flower,  and  fruit,  immensely  richer. 
"Plant  Consciousness. — The  relation  of 
the  nature  spirit  to  the  consciousness  func- 
tioning through  the  vegetable  kingdom  gen- 
erally is  an  interesting  study  too,  for  the 
twain  appear  quite  separate.  This  might 
perhaps  be  likened  to  the  role  respectively  of 
184 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

crew  and  passenger  in  a  ship.  The  slumber- 
ing, or  at  best  slowly  awakening,  conscious- 
ness of  the  plant,  makes  of  it  little  more 
than  an  idle  traveller,  whereas  the  nature 
spirits,  alert  and  active,  attend  to  the  up- 
keep and  navigation  of  the  craft,  and  the 
voyage  through  the  kingdom  means  a  growth 
and  development  for  both. 

*'The  Future. — What  might  follow  an 
intelligent  understanding  of  the  'little  peo- 
ple,' and  the  establishment  of  mutual  good 
feeling,  opens  up  a  prospect  alluring  in  the 
extreme.  It  would  be  for  us  a  working  in 
the  light  instead  of  in  darkness.  A  foretaste 
of  such  co-operation  may  be  gathered  by 
noting  the  effect  of  a  devoted  lover  of  flow- 
ers on  his  or  her  charges.  The  nature  spirit 
responds  to  emotion  and  appears  keenly  ap- 
preciative of  kindly  attention  and  affection. 
Whether  this  applies  with  any  force  to  any 
but  the  varieties  concerned  with  flowers  and 
fruits  I  cannot  say,  but  it  certainly  does  to 
them,  and  the  intelligent  direction  of  effort 
in  place  of  empirical  incident  tempts  one's 
speculation  to  run  riot  as  to  future  possi- 
bilities. 

185 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

"The  awakened  self -consciousness  of  the 
human  kingdom,  with  a  vigorous  mentality 
linked  to  kindly  emotion  and  physical  ac- 
tion, may  enable  an  ages-old  debt  to  be  ad- 
justed. We  have  served  the  nature-spirit 
line  of  evolution  consciously  not  at  all,  but 
by  understanding  the  situation  we  can  co- 
operate together  intelligently  and  helpfully, 
and  the  service  of  both  to  mutual  advantage 
can  take  the  place  of  blind  experiment  and 
groping  self-interest." — E.  L.  G. 

In  the  literature  of  Theosophy,  I  know 
no  one  who  treats  the  elemental  forces  of 
nature  more  fully  than  Bishop  Leadbeater, 
whom  I  met  in  my  Australian  travels,  and 
who  impressed  me  by  his  venerable  appear- 
ance, his  ascetic  habits,  and  his  claims  to  a 
remarkable  clairvoyancy  which  has,  as  he 
alleges,  opened  up  many  of  the  Arcana.  In 
his  book  The  Hidden  Side  of  Things  he  talks 
very  fully  of  the  fairies  of  many  lands. 

Dealing  with  the  little  creatures  whom  so 
many  of  my  informants  have  seen  tending 
flowers,  the  seer  says : 

''The    little    creatures    that    look    after 
186 


THE    THEOSOPHIC   VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

flowers  may  be  divided  into  two  great  classes, 
though  of  course  there  are  many  varieties 
of  each  kind.  The  first  class  may  properly 
be  called  elementals,  for,  beautiful  though 
they  are,  they  are  in  reality  only  thought- 
forms,  and  therefore  they  are  not  really  liv- 
ing creatures  at  all.  Perhaps  I  should 
rather  say  that  they  are  only  temporary  liv- 
ing creatures,  for,  though  they  are  very 
active  and  busy  during  their  little  lives,  they 
have  no  real  evolving,  reincarnating  life  in 
them,  and  when  they  have  done  their  work 
they  just  go  to  pieces  and  dissolve  into  the 
surrounding  atmosphere,  precisely  as  our 
own  thought-forms  do.  They  are  the 
thought-forms  of  the  Great  Beings,  or  an- 
gels, who  are  in  charge  of  the  evolution  of 
the  vegetable  kingdom. 

^'When  one  of  these  Great  Ones  has  a  new 
idea  connected  with  one  of  the  kinds  of 
plants  or  flowers  which  are  under  his  charge, 
he  often  creates  a  thought-form  for  the  spe- 
cial purpose  of  carrying  out  that  idea.  It 
usually  takes  the  form  either  of  an  etheric 
model  of  the  flower  itself  or  of  a  little  crea- 
ture which  hangs  round  the  plant  or  the 

187 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

flower  all  through  the  tirae  that  the  buds  are 
forming,  and  gradually  builds  them  into  the 
shape  and  colour  of  which  the  angel  has 
thought.  But  as  soon  as  the  plant  has  fully 
grown,  or  the  flower  has  opened,  its  work  is 
over  and  its  power  is  exhausted,  and,  as  I 
have  said,  it  just  simply  dissolves,  because 
the  will  to  do  that  piece  of  work  was  the 
only  soul  that  it  had. 

*'But  there  is  quite  another  kind  of  lit- 
tle creature  which  is  very  frequently  seen 
playing  about  with  flowers,  and  this  time  it 
is  a  real  nature  spirit.  There  are  many  va- 
rieties of  these  also.  One  of  the  commonest 
forms  is,  as  I  have  said,  something  very 
much  like  a  humming-bird,  and  it  may  often 
be  seen  buzzing  round  the  flowers  much  in 
the  same  way  as  a  humming-bird  or  a  bee 
does.  These  beautiful  little  creatures  will 
never  become  human,  because  they  are  not  in 
the  same  line  of  evolution  as  we  are.  The 
life  which  is  now  animating  them  has  come 
up  through  grasses  and  cereals,  such  as 
wheat  and  oats,  when  it  was  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  afterwards  through  ants  and  bees 
when  it  was  in  the  animal  kingdom.  Now  it 
188 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

has  reached  the  level  of  these  tiny  nature 
spirits,  and  its  next  stage  will  be  to  ensoul 
some  of  the  beautiful  fairies  with  etheric 
bodies  who  live  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
Later  on  they  will  become  salamanders,  or 
fire  spirits,  and  later  still  they  will  become 
sylphs,  or  air  spirits,  having  only  astral 
bodies  instead  of  etheric.  Later  still  they 
will  pass  through  the  different  stages  of  the 
great  kingdom  of  the  angels." 

Speaking  of  the  national  characteristics 
of  fairies,  he  says  with  all  the  assurance  of 
an  actual  observer  (page  97)  : 

"No  contrast  could  well  be  more  marked 
than  that  between  the  vivacious,  rollicking, 
orange-and-purple  or  scarlet-and-gold  man- 
nikins  who  dance  among  the  vineyards  of 
Sicily  and  the  almost  wistful  grey-and-green 
creatures  who  move  so  much  more  sedately 
amidst  the  oaks  and  furze-covered  heaths  in 
Brittany,  or  the  golden-brown  'good  people' 
who  haunt  the  hillsides  of  Scotland. 

'*In  England  the  emerald-green  kind  is 
probably  the  commonest,  and  I  have  seen  it 
also  in  the  woods  in  France  and  Belgium,  in 

189 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

far-away  Massachusetts,  and  on  the  banks 
of  the  Niagara  River.  The  vast  plains  of 
the  Dakotas  are  inhabited  by  a  black-and- 
white  kind  which  I  have  not  seen  elsewhere, 
and  California  rejoices  in  a  lovely  white- 
and-gold  species  which  also  appears  to  be 
unique. 

"In  Australia  the  most  frequent  type  is  a 
very  distinctive  creature  of  a  wonderful 
luminous  sky-blue  colour ;  but  there  is  a  wide 
diversity  between  the  etheric  inhabitants  of 
New  South  Wales  or  Victoria  and  those  of 
tropical  Northern  Queensland.  These  lat- 
ter approximate  closely  to  those  of  the 
Dutch  Indies.  Java  seems  specially  prolific 
in  these  graceful  creatures,  and  the  kinds 
most  common  there  are  two  distinct  types, 
both  monochromatic — one  indigo  blue  with 
faint  metallic  gleamings,  and  the  other  a 
study  in  all  known  shades  of  yellow — quaint, 
but  wonderfully  effective  and  attractive. 

**A  striking  local  variety  is  gaudily  ringed 
with  alternate  bars  of  green  and  yellow,  like 
a  football  jersey.  This  ringed  type  is  pos- 
sibly a  race  peculiar  to  that  part  of  the 
world,  for  I  saw  red  and  yeUow  similarly 
190 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

arranged  in  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  green 
and  white  on  the  other  side  of  the  Straits  in 
Sumatra.  That  huge  island  also  rejoices 
in  the  possession  of  a  lovely  pale  heliotrope 
tribe  which  I  have  seen  before  only  in  the 
hills  of  Ceylon.  Down  in  New  Zealand 
their  speciality  is  a  deep  blue  shot  with  sil- 
ver, while  in  the  South  Sea  Islands  one 
meets  with  a  silvery- white  variety,  which 
coruscates  with  all  the  colours  of  the  rain- 
bow, like  a  figure  of  mother-of-pearl. 

*'In  India  we  find  all  sorts,  from  the  deli- 
cate rose-and-pale-green,  or  pale-blue-and- 
primrose  of  the  hill-coimtry  to  the  rich  med- 
ley of  gorgeously  gleaming  colours,  almost 
barbaric  in  their  intensity  and  profusion, 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  plains.  In 
some  parts  of  that  marvellous  country  I  have 
seen  the  black-and-gold  type  which  is  more 
usually  associated  with  the  African  desert, 
and  also  a  species  which  resembles  a  statu- 
ette made  out  of  a  gleaming  crimson  metal, 
such  as  was  the  orichalcum  of  the  Atlan- 
teans. 

''Somewhat  akin  to  this  last  is  a  curious 
variety  which  looks  as  though  cast  out  of 

191 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

bronze  and  burnished;  it  appears  to  make 
its  home  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  volcanic  disturbances,  since  the  only- 
places  in  which  it  has  been  seen  so  far  are 
the  slopes  of  Vesuvius  and  Etna,  the  interior 
of  Java,  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the  Yellow- 
stone Park  in  North  America,  and  a  certain 
part  of  the  North  Island  of  New  Zealand. 
Several  indications  seem  to  point  to  the  con- 
clusion that  this  is  a  survival  of  a  primi- 
tive type,  and  represents  a  sort  of  interme- 
diate stage  between  the  gnome  and  the  fairy. 
*'In  some  cases,  districts  close  together  are 
found  to  be  inhabited  by  quite  different 
classes  of  nature  spirits ;  for  example,  as  has 
already  been  mentioned,  the  emerald-green 
elves  are  common  in  Belgium,  yet  a  hundred 
miles  away  in  Holland  hardly  one  of  them  is 
to  be  seen,  and  their  place  is  taken  by  a  sober- 
looking  dark-purple  species." 

Very  interesting  indeed  is  his  account  of 
the  Irish  fairies.  Speaking  of  a  sacred 
mountain  in  Ireland,  he  says : 

"A  curious  fact  is  that  altitude  above  the 

sea-level  seems  to  affect  their  distribution, 
192 


THE    THEOSOPHIC    VIEW   OF    FAIRIES 

those  who  belong  to  the  moimtains  scarcely 
ever  intermingling  with  those  of  the  plains. 
I  well  remember,  when  climbing  Slieve-na- 
mon,  one  of  the  traditionally  sacred  hills  of 
Ireland,  noticing  the  very  definite  lines  of 
demarcation  between  the  different  types. 
The  lower  slopes,  like  the  surrounding 
plains,  were  alive  with  the  intensely  active 
and  mischievous  little  red-and-black  race 
which  swarms  all  over  the  south  and  west  of 
Ireland,  being  especially  attracted  to  the 
magnetic  centres  established  nearly  two 
thousand  years  ago  by  the  magic-working 
priests  of  the  old  Milesian  race  to  ensure 
and  perpetuate  their  domination  over  the 
people  by  keeping  them  under  the  influence 
of  the  great  illusion.  After  half  an  hour's 
climbing,  however,  not  one  of  these  red-and- 
black  gentry  was  to  be  seen,  but  instead  the 
hill-side  was  populous  with  the  gentler  blue- 
and-brown  type  which  long  ago  owed  special 
allegiance  to  the  Tuatha-de-Danaan. 

*' These  also  had  their  zone  and  their  well- 
defined  limits,  and  no  nature  spirit  of  either 
type  ever  ventured  to  trespass  upon  the 
space  round  the  summit,  sacred  to  the  great 

193 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

green  angels  who  have  watched  there  for 
more  than  two  thousand  years,  guarding  one 
of  the  centres  of  living  force  that  link  the 
past  to  the  future  of  that  mystic  land  of 
Erin.  Taller  far  than  the  height  of  man, 
these  giant  forms,  in  colour  like  the  first  new 
leaves  of  spring,  soft,  luminous,  shimmer- 
ing, indescribable,  look  forth  over  the  world 
with  wondrous  eyes  that  shine  like  stars,  full 
of  the  peace  of  those  who  live  in  the  eternal, 
waiting  with  the  calm  certainty  of  knowl- 
edge until  the  appointed  time  shall  come. 
One  realizes  very  fully  the  power  and  impor- 
tance of  the  hidden  side  of  things  when  one 
beholds  such  a  spectacle  as  that. ' ' 

For  fuller  information  the  reader  may 
well  be  referred  to  the  original,  published 
by  the  Theosophical  Publishing  House.  The 
book  is  a  storehouse  of  knowledge  upon  all 
occult  matters,  and  certainly  the  details  con- 
cerning the  fairies  fit  in  remarkably  well 
with  the  information  from  other  sources. 

I  have  now  laid  before  the  reader  the  full 
circumstances  in  connection  with  the  five 
successful  photographs  taken  at  Cottingley. 
194 


THE  THEOSOPHIC  VIEW  OF  FAIRIES 

I  have  added  the  experience  of  a  clairvoyant 
officer  in  the  company  of  the  girls  upon  the 
third  and  unsuccessful  attempt  to  get  photo- 
graphs. I  have  analysed  some  of  the  criti- 
cism which  we  have  had  to  meet.  I  have 
given  the  reader  the  opportunity  of  judging 
the  evidence  for  a  considerable  nimiber  of 
alleged  cases,  collected  before  and  after  the 
Cottingley  incident.  Finally,  I  have  placed 
before  him  the  general  theory  of  the  place 
in  creation  of  such  creatures,  as  defined  by 
the  only  system  of  thought  which  has  found 
room  for  them.  Having  read  and  weighed 
all  this,  the  investigator  is  in  as  strong  a  po- 
sition as  Mr.  Gardner  or  myself,  and  each 
must  give  his  own  verdict.  I  do  not  myself 
contend  that  the  proof  is  as  overwhelming 
as  in  the  case  of  spiritualistic  phenomena. 
We  cannot  call  upon  the  brightest  brains 
in  the  scientific  world,  the  Crookes,  the 
Lodges,  or  the  Lombrosos,  for  confirmation. 
But  that  also  may  come,  and  for  the  present, 
while  more  evidence  will  be  welcome,  there 
is  enough  already  available  to  convince  any 
reasonable  man  that  the  matter  is  not  one 
which  can  be  readily  dismissed,  but  that  a 

195 


THE  COMING  OF  THE  FAIRIES 

case  actually  exists  which  up  to  now  has  not 
been  shaken  in  the  least  degree  by  any  of 
the  criticism  directed  against  it.  Far  from 
being  resented,  such  criticism,  so  long  as  it 
is  earnest  and  honest,  must  be  most  welcome 
to  those  whose  only  aim  is  the  fearless  search 
for  truth. 


196 


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