But it was impossible to ignore the spectacle that ensued in 1919, when photographs emerged of two girls from Yorkshire, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, playing with fairies. About eight inches tall with ornate wings, and playing miniature pipes, the fairies appeared to be enjoying their time with the girls. Conan Doyle seized on the pictures and, in an essay published in December 1920 in The Strand, pronounced them real.
