Podcast Summary: Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Episode: Photographing Fairies (Classic)
Date: December 26, 2025
Podcast by: Pushkin Industries
Host/Narrator: Tim Harford

Overview of the Episode

“Photographing Fairies” revisits the remarkable true story of the Cottingley Fairy photographs and the extraordinary credulity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. With Harford’s signature insight, the episode explores the psychology of belief, the power of deception (including well-intentioned lies), and the collision of skepticism and hope. It’s a cautionary tale of how playful forgery spun out of control — for over six decades — ensnaring one of Victorian England’s most famous minds in its web.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Birth of the Fairy Photographs (03:32–08:22)

• Cottingley, 1917: Nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her older cousin, 16-year-old Elsie Wright, claim to see fairies near the stream (“beck”) behind their home.
• After being scolded for wet clothes (blaming fairies!), Elsie proposes they photograph the fairies as proof.
• Using Elsie’s father’s camera, they stage and capture two iconic photographs: one featuring Frances with dancing sprites, another of Elsie with a gnome.

Quote:
Frances, for some unaccountable reason, always fell down when we went up the beck.
— Elsie Wright (08:22)

2. The Photographs Spread & Legendary Endorsement (08:22–16:15)

• Elsie’s mother Polly is intrigued by spiritualism and shares the photos at a society meeting, which leads them to Edward Gardner, a famous mystic.
• Gardner seeks expert analysis from Harold Snelling, who confirms (on retouched prints) that the images seem genuine.
• The photos ultimately land with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is gripped by the prospect that fairies have been captured on film. He publicizes the images in The Strand and his 1922 book, The Coming of the Fairies.

Quote:
The original negative is asserted by expert photographers to bear not the slightest trace of combination work...
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (06:04)

Quote:
I have convinced myself that there is overwhelming evidence for the fairies.
— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (06:25)

• Public reaction is split: some believe, others ridicule, questioning Doyle’s judgment.

Quote:
A newspaper headline of the time put it bluntly: “Has Conan Doyle gone mad?”
— Tim Harford (07:04)

3. Expertise, Skepticism, and the Confounding of Truth (16:15–21:24)

• Critics cite Doyle’s legendary character Sherlock Holmes:
  “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
  — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (16:04)
• Still, belief blinds even experts. Harford draws a parallel to Dutch art forger Han van Meegeren and the “Vermeers.”
• The real methods behind the fairy photos remain unresolved for decades.

4. The Forensic Unravelling (21:24–30:33)

• 1970s/1980s Revival: Geoffrey Crawley, editor of the British Journal of Photography, uses Holmesian logic and the original camera to test the story.
• He discovers the original camera, under typical conditions, could not produce the famously sharp fairy images; later photos use varied tricks (retouching, double exposure, cutouts).
• Key insight: Each photograph achieved its effect via a different method, making them especially hard to debunk as a set.

Quote:
The sequence of Cottingley fairy photographs use the same bewildering strategy… If you look at them and try to find a single trick behind them all, you can't.
— Tim Harford (24:38)

• Further investigation reveals Elsie, far from an innocent child, was an art student and worked in photographic post-processing at a greeting card factory.

Quote:
She was very clever at art, and particularly with drawing fairies and cutting them out.
— Teacher recalling Elsie Wright (26:54)

5. The Confession & Persistence of the Magical Lie (36:17–44:53)

• Elsie’s Confession: Finally, in the 1980s, an elderly Elsie Wright (now Hill) admits the hoax in a letter to Crawley:

  Quote:
  Thank you for your letter revealing so much depth and understanding of the pickle Frances and I got ourselves into on that day, when our practical joke fell flat… Instead, the laugh was on us.
  — Elsie Wright (36:33)

• The intended joke gets away from the girls, turning into a lie maintained for decades largely to protect the feelings and reputations of the men taken in.

• Harford discusses why lies — even playful ones — can endure. Sometimes, he argues, we lie to spare others, to be polite, or because the social cost of truth is too high.

• The social and cultural context: belief in spiritualism was heightened by bereavement and loss post-war and during the 1918 flu pandemic — people wanted to believe in life after death, and thus, in the supernatural.

• Conan Doyle’s own family tragedies (wife, brother, son, and mother all lost within a short period) increased his emotional vulnerability to such hope.

Quote:
At first, Elsie Wright had been trying to comfort Frances. Then she had been showing off her talents as an artist and a photographer. But as the deception continued, she began lying, because it would have been heartless to tell the truth. Edward Gardiner and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had so publicly put their trust in Elsie and Frances and their photographs and been so mocked for it, that for the young women to confess would be to humiliate both men utterly.
— Tim Harford (37:45)

6. A Lasting Legacy and the Irony of Success (44:20–46:00)

• Crawley muses on Elsie’s accidental legacy:

Quote:
If you take as the criterion of success coverage in the national media in column inches and television time... then Elsie is by far the most successful photographer in the craft's history. If it is remembered that that success has been based on the first photograph she ever took, then whether or not you believe in fairies, it has to be admitted that her record will probably remain unsurpassed.
— Geoffrey Crawley, as relayed by Tim Harford (44:20)

• The story, at its heart, is about the enduring power of imagination — and how even the finest minds can be enchanted, or deceived, by it.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the nature of expertise and credulity:
  “If a person wants to believe something passionately enough, expertise is no defence.”
  — Tim Harford (16:15)

• On the persistence of magical thinking:
  “Fairies are famous for casting mischievous spells and I can't help thinking about Elsie and Frances heading down to Cottingley Beck that summer over a century ago... Together they cast a spell that lasted a lifetime.”
  — Tim Harford (44:53)

Thematic Insights

• The psychology of deception: Why intelligent people sometimes believe the impossible — and why seemingly harmless lies can snowball into myths held for generations.
• The urge to believe: Deep grief and desperation often foster credulity, especially for ideas that promise hope or connection beyond this world.
• The “magical lie”: Small untruths — like the tale of Rudolph or the Cottingley fairies — often serve deeper social purposes: comfort, politeness, or the necessity of hope.
• The irony of innocence: Elsie and Frances carried their secret for most of their lives not for personal gain, but to sustain the illusions of others, especially the men in power.

Key Timestamps

• 03:32 — Doyle reads of the “fairy photographs”
• 06:04–06:25 — Doyle, imitating Holmes, argues for the evidence’s authenticity
• 08:22 — Genesis of the first photos and their in-house skepticism
• 16:04 — Holmes’s dictum on eliminating the impossible
• 21:24 — Geoffrey Crawley begins rigorous investigation
• 36:33 — Elsie Wright’s letter and confession
• 44:20 — Crawley’s reflection on Elsie's unrivaled “success”

Conclusion

“Photographing Fairies” is a sparklingly told narrative, blending detective story with psychological analysis. It is both a gentle warning and a celebration of wonder. How far will a playful fib travel before it becomes truth for others? The Cottingley fairies — born of a child’s creative talent and an adult’s longing for meaning — remind listeners that the line between magical enjoyment and tragic self-deception is thinner than we often realize.

For further reading and sources, visit timharford.com or see the episode show notes.