The Cottingley Fairies appeared in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901-1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907-1986), two young cousins ​​who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photos were taken, Elsie was sixteen and Frances was 9. The pictures became the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article about the fairy who had been commissioned to write for the 1920 Christmas Edition of < i> The Strand Magazine . Doyle, as a spiritualist, was very enthusiastic about the photos, and interpreted them as clear and real evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction mixed; some accept images as original, others believe they have been forged.
The interest in the Cottingley Elves gradually declined after 1921. The two girls married and lived abroad for some time after they grew up, but the photos continue to hold the public's imagination. In 1966, a reporter from the Daily Express newspaper tracked down Elsie, who had returned to England at that time. Elsie allows the possibility that she believes she has photographed her thoughts, and the media once again becomes intrigued by her story.
In the early 1980s Elsie and Frances admitted that the photos were forged, using pieces of cardboard from the fairies that were copied from a popular children's book at the time, but Frances stated that the fifth and final photograph was genuine. The photographs and two cameras used are on display at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, England.
Video Cottingley Fairies
1917 foto
In mid-1917, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her mother - both newly arrived in Britain from South Africa - lived with the aunt Frances, the mother of Elsie Wright, in the village of Cottingley in West Yorkshire; Elsie was then 16 years old. The two girls often play together beside the beck (stream) at the bottom of the garden, much to their mother's annoyance, as they often return with wet feet and clothes. Frances and Elsie say that they just go to beck to see the fairies, and to prove it, Elsie borrowed her father's camera, a Midg number plate. The girls returned about 30 minutes later, "won".
Elsie's father, Arthur, was a keen amateur photographer, and had prepared his own dark room. The picture on the photographic plate he developed shows Frances behind the bushes in the foreground, where four fairies look dancing. Knowing the artistic abilities of his daughter, and that he spent some time working in a photographer's studio, he considered the numbers as pieces of cardboard. Two months later the girls borrowed the camera again, and this time back with Elsie's photo sitting in the yard stretching her hand to a 1 foot (30 cm) gnome. Obsessed by what he believes to be "nothing but a joke", and convinced that the girls must have damaged the camera in some way, Arthur Wright refuses to lend it to them again. However, his wife Polly believes the photos are genuine.
Toward the end of 1918, Frances sent a letter to Johanna Parvin, a friend in Cape Town, South Africa, where Frances lived for most of her life, attaching a picture of herself with the fairies. Behind him he wrote, "Funny, I never saw them in Africa, it must be too hot for them there."
The photographs became public in mid-1919, after Elsie's mother attended the Theosophical Society meeting in Bradford. The evening talk was about "fairy life", and at the end of the meeting, Polly Wright showed two fairy pictures taken by her daughter and niece to the speaker. As a result, the photographs were displayed at the annual community conference in Harrogate, held a few months later. There they got the attention of a prominent member of society, Edward Gardner. One of the central beliefs of theosophy is that mankind is undergoing an evolutionary cycle, leading to an increase in "perfection", and Gardner realizes the potential meaning of photographs for the movement:
... the fact that two young girls not only can see the fairies, which others have done, but in fact for the first time are able to manifest them in sufficient density for their images to be recorded on photographic plates, it is possible that the next evolutionary cycle is underway.
Maps Cottingley Fairies
Initial check
Gardner sent the print along with the original glass negative to Harold Snelling, a photographer. Snelling's opinion is that "both negatives are completely original, unused photographs... [with] no trace of anything from studio work involving cards or paper models". He did not go very far to say that the photographs showed the fairies, merely stating that "these are straight forward photographs of whatever was in front of the camera at the time". Gardner has Snelling's "clarified" prints, and the resulting new negative, "more conducive to printing," for use in the pictorial lectures he gives across Britain. Snelling provides prints of photographs available for sale at Gardner's lectures.
Leading writer and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle knows photographs from the editor of the spiritualist publication Light . Doyle has been commissioned by The Strand Magazine to write an article about fairies for their Christmas issues, and fairy photographs "must have seemed like a blessing from God" according to broadcaster and historian Magnus Magnusson. Doyle contacted Gardner in June 1920 to determine the background of the photographs, and wrote a letter to Elsie and his father to ask permission from the last to use the print in his article. Arthur Wright was "very impressed" that Doyle was involved, and granted permission for publication, but he refused the payment on the grounds that, if original, the picture should not be "dirty" by money.
Gardner and Doyle sought the second expert opinion of the Kodak photography company. Some of the company's technicians inspect the improved prints, and although they agree with Snelling that the images "show no signs of falsification", they conclude that "this can not be taken as conclusive proof... that they are authentic fairy photos". Kodak refused to issue a certificate of authenticity. Gardner believes that Kodak technicians may not examine photographs completely objectively, observing that someone has commented "after all, since the fairy can not be true, the photographs must have been falsified somehow." The prints were also examined by another photography company, Ilford, who reported emphatically that there was "some evidence of faking". Gardner and Doyle, perhaps somewhat optimistic, interpreted the results of three expert evaluations as two that support the authenticity of photographs and one against.
Doyle also showed photographs to physicists and pioneering psychic researchers Sir Oliver Lodge, who believed the photos were fake. He suggested that the dancers 'troupes had masqueraded as fairies, and expressed doubts about their "clear" Parisienne ' "hairstyle.
1920 photos
Doyle was busy with a lecture tour in Australia, and in July 1920, sent Gardner to meet the Wright family. Frances at the time was living with her parents in Scarborough, but Elsie's father told Gardner that she was so sure the photos were fake, while the girls were leaving her searching for rooms and areas around the beck, looking for pieces or drawings, but not find anything "burdensome".
Gardner believes the Wright family to be honest and honorable. To place the issue of the authenticity of his photographs without a doubt, he returned to Cottingley at the end of July with two Kodak Cameo cameras and 24 photographic plates marked in secret. Frances was invited to stay with the Wright family during the summer school holidays so she and Elsie could take more pictures of the fairies. Gardner describes his briefings in his 1945 Fairies: A Book of Real Fairies :
I went, to Cottingley again, took two cameras and plates from London, and met the family and explained to the two girls the simple workings of the cameras, giving each one to guard. The cameras are loaded, and my last suggestion is that they should go to the valley only on the beautiful days they used to do before and visit the fairies, because they call their way of attracting them. , and see what they can get. I just suggest the clearest and easiest things about lighting and distance, because I know it's important they have to feel free and unobstructed and have no responsibility burden. If nothing happens, I tell them, they do not mind one bit.
Until 19 August the weather is not suitable for photography. Since Frances and Elsie insist that the fairy will not show herself if other people watch, Elsie's mother is persuaded to visit her sister for tea, leaving the girls alone. In his absence the girls took several photographs, two of which appeared to show fairies. In the first one, Frances and Leaping Fairy, Frances is featured in a profile with a winged fairy close to her nose. Secondly, the Fairy offers Posy of Harebells to Elsie, showing fairies either floating or storied in branches, and offering Elsie flowers. Two days later the girls took their last picture, their Fairy and Sun-Bath .
The plates were filled with cotton and returned to Gardner in London, which sent a "joyful" telegram to Doyle, then in Melbourne. Doyle wrote back:
My heart is happy when here in Australia, I have a note and three beautiful photos that confirm our published results. When our fairies recognize other psychic phenomena will find a more prepared reception... We have had messages that continue for some time so that the visible sign comes.
Publications and reactions
Doyle's article in the December 1920 edition of The Strand contains two prints of higher resolution than photographs of 1917, and sold out within days of publication. To protect the anonymity of the girls, Frances and Elsie are each called Alice and Iris, and the Wright family is referred to as "Carpenter". An enthusiastic and committed spiritualist, Doyle hopes that if photographs convince the public of the existence of fairies then they may be better prepared to accept other psychic phenomena. He ended his article with the words:
The recognition of their existence will shake the twentieth-century material mind of the heavy wheels in the mud, and will make it recognize that there is a charm and mystery to life. Having discovered this, the world will not find it so difficult to receive a spiritual message backed up by physical facts that have been laid before.
The initial press coverage is a "mix", generally a combination of "shame and confusion". Novelist and poet Maurice Hewlett published a series of articles in the literary journal John O 'London's Weekly , where he concluded: "And knowing the children, and knowing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had legs, I decided that Miss Carpenters has attracted one of them. "The Sydney newspaper Truth on January 5, 1921 expressed the same view; "For the true explanation of these fairy photos what is desired is not the knowledge of the occult phenomenon but the knowledge of the children." Some public figures are more sympathetic. Margaret McMillan, educational and social reformer, writes, "It is remarkable that for these dear children, great gifts have been given." Novelist Henry De Vere Stacpoole decided to take photographs of the fairies and the girls at face value. In a letter to Gardner he writes: "Look at Alice's face [Frances] Look at Iris's face [Elsie].There is something extraordinarily named Truth that has 10 million faces and shapes - it is God's currency and the cleverest guides or counterfeiters can not imitate it. "
Major John Hall-Edwards, a keen photographer and a pioneer in medical X-ray care in England, is a very passionate critic:
On proof I have no hesitation in saying that these photos could be "forged". I criticize the attitude of those who claim there is something supernatural in the circumstances of attending these photographs because, as a medical, I believe that planting absurd ideas into the minds of children will produce life later on in manifestation and neurological disorders and mental disorders.
Doyle used photographs later in 1921 to illustrate a second article on The Strand, where he described other stories of fairy appearance. The article forms the foundation for his 1922 book The Coming of the Fairies . As before, the photos were received with mixed credibility. Skeptics note that the fairies "looked suspiciously like traditional fairy tales about children's stories" and that they had "very fashionable hairstyles".
Gardner's last visit
Gardner made his last visit to Cottingley in August 1921. He returned with photographic cameras and plates for Frances and Elsie, but was accompanied by fortune teller Geoffrey Hodson. Although neither of the girls claimed to see a fairy, and no more photos, "on the contrary, he [Hodson] saw them [elves] everywhere" and wrote a thick note on his observations.
Now Elsie and Frances are tired of the whole fairy business. Years later Elsie saw a picture of herself and Frances taken with Hodson and said: "Look at that, already fed up with fairies." Both Elsie and Frances later admitted that they "played together" with Hodson "out of misbehavior", and that they considered him "fake".
Next investigation
Public interest in the Cottingley Fair gradually subsided after 1921. Elsie and Frances eventually married and lived abroad for years. In 1966, a reporter from the Daily Express newspaper tracked down Elsie, who was back in England. He admitted in an interview given that year that the fairy might be "a figment of my imagination", but left it open to the possibility that he believed he somehow managed to take his mind. The media then became interested in the photos of Frances and Elsie once more. The BBC's Nationwide television program investigated the case in 1971, but Elsie kept the story: "I have told you that they are imaginary photos of our imagination, and that's what I'm dealing with"..
Elsie and Frances were interviewed by journalist Austin Mitchell in September 1976, for program broadcasts on Yorkshire Television. When pressed, the two women agreed that "rational people do not see fairies", but they deny having made up the photos. In 1978 wizards and scientific skeptics James Randi and a team from the Scientific Investigation Committee of Paranormal Claims examine the photographs, using "computer upgrading". They concluded that the photographs were fake, and the ropes could be seen supporting the fairies. Geoffrey Crawley, editor of the British Journal of Photography, conducted a "major scientific investigation of photographs and events around him", published between 1982 and 1983, "the first major postwar analysis of events". He also concluded that the photos were fake.
Confession
In 1983, the cousin admitted in an article published in The Unexplained magazine that the photos were falsified, although both claimed they had actually seen fairies. Elsie had copied the dancing girl illustrations from the popular children's book at the time, Mary's Women's Gift Book , published in 1914, and drew wings on them. They said they then cut the cardboard numbers and supported them with cappins, throwing their props at beck after the photo had been taken. But the cousin disagrees about the fifth and final photo, which Doyle in his book The Coming of the Fairies is explained in this way:
Sitting on the top left edge with well-displayed wings is an undamaged fairy who seems to be considering whether it's time to wake up. Early logging from a more mature age seen on the right has abundant hair and beautiful wings. Her slightly denser body can be glimpsed in her dress.
Elsie argues that it's fake, just like the others, but Frances insists it's genuine. In an interview given in the early 1980s, Frances said:
It was a wet Saturday afternoon and we were just pacing our cameras and Elsie had no preparation. I see these fairies build on the grass and just point the camera and take a photo.
Both Frances and Elsie claim to have taken the fifth photo. In a letter published in The Times on April 9, 1983, Geoffrey Crawley explains the difference by suggesting that the photo was "undesirable unwanted exposure of fairy pieces on the grass", and by thus "both women can be quite sincere in believing that they each take it".
In a 1985 interview on Yorkshire Television's Powers of Strange Arthur C. Clarke, Elsie said that she and Frances were too embarrassed to admit the truth after fooling Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes: "Two village boys and intelligent men like Conan Doyle - well, we can only be silent. "In the same interview Frances said:" I never even thought it was a scam - it was just Elsie and I had fun and I can not understand till today why they were taken - they want to be taken in. "
Next history
Frances died in 1986, and Elsie in 1988. Prints of their photographs of the fairy, along with several other items including the first edition of Doyle's book The Coming of the Fairies, were sold at auction in London for à ,  £ 21,620 in 1998. In the same year, Geoffrey Crawley sold his Cottingley Fairy material to the National Museum of Film, Photography, and Television at Bradford (now National Science and Media Museum), where it is on display. This collection includes prints of photographs, two cameras used by girls, water fairies painted by Elsie, and a nine page letter from Elsie admitting a hoax. The glass photographic plate was purchased for £ 6,000 by an unnamed buyer at a London auction held in 2001.
Frances's daughter, Christine Lynch, appeared on an episode of the Belfast Antilles Road show in Belfast, broadcast on BBC One in January 2009, with photos and one of the cameras given to the girls by Doyle. Christine tells the expert, Paul Atterbury, that she believes, as her mother did, that the fairy in the fifth photo is genuine. Atterbury estimates the value of goods between Ã, Â £ 25,000 and Ã, Â £ 30,000. The first edition of Frances' memoir was published several months later, under the title Reflections on the Cottingley Fairy . This book contains correspondence, sometimes "bitter", between Elsie and Frances. In one letter, dated 1983, Frances wrote:
I hated those pictures since the age of 16 when Mr. Gardner offered me a flower and wanted me to sit on the stage [at the Theosophical Society meeting] with him. I realized what I was facing if I did not hide myself.
The 1997 films FairyTale: A True Story and Photographing Fairies were inspired by events around the Cottingley Fairy. The photographs were parodied in a 1994 book written by Terry Jones and Brian Froud, Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book .
By 2017, two fairy photos are shown as evidence that the girl's parents are part of the conspiracy. Originally from 1917 and 1918, the two photographs were copies of two poorly executed fairy tale photos. One was published in 1918 in The Sphere newspaper, which was originally seen by anyone outside the close family of the girls.
References
Quote
Bibliografi
Bacaan lebih lanjut
- Losure, Mary (2012), The Fairy Ring atau Elsie dan Frances Fool the World , Candlewick, ISBN 978-0-7636-5670- 6
- Griffiths, Frances Mary; Lynch, Christine (2009), Refleksi pada Cottingley Fairies , Publikasi JMJ, ISBN 978-1-899228-06-5
- Bihet, Francesca (2013). "Sprite, spiritualis dan detektif: kepemilikan yang berseberangan dari bukti transenden dalam Penipuan Peri Cottingley". Di: Afterlife: Konferensi Agama dan Teologi Pascasarjana ke-18, 8-9 Maret 2013, Universitas Bristol. (Tidak dipublikasikan)
Tautan eksternal
- The Coming of the Fairies - - pemindaian versi asli buku Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1922)
- Kasus The Cottingley Fairies di Yayasan Pendidikan The James Randi
- Cottingley Fairies di Cottingley.Net - Jaringan Cottingley
- Peri Cottingley di Cottingley Connect
- The Coming of the Fairies audiobook domain publik di LibriVox
- Bahan Arsip di Perpustakaan Universitas Leeds
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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