Playing with the Fairies
In 1917, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, ten and sixteen years old respectively, were staying together in the Wrights' home in Cottingley Village, Yorkshire, after Frances and her mother had returned from South Africa. The girls were cousins and liked to play together in the narrow stream, referred to as a "beck," near their home. When Frances was scolded by her mother for getting her clothes wet and dirty in the beck, she claimed that she had fallen in the water while "playing with the fairies." The excuse did not go over well.
The girls decided to provide evidence for Frances's claim, and a few days later Elsie asked her father, Arthur Wright, to lend them his camera for the day. After leaving school at the age of thirteen, Elsie had briefly attended a college of art, then taken a job with a local photography business, so Arthur had no qualms about entrusting her with his camera. Elsie and Francis returned with two photographic plates that they asked him to develop.
While Elsie's father dismissed the two resulting photos as a prank, Elsie's mother, who developed an interest in Theosophy, brought the photos to the attention of her local Theosophical Society in 1919.