Photographing Fairies (Classic)
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 December 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sherlock Holmes is known for approaching all mysteries with cool logic - and yet when his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw photographs taken by two young girls purporting to show real life fairies at play... he unwisely declared them genuine.
How did Elsie and Frances fool so many people with their photography... and why did they keep the hoax going for decades?
For a full list of sources go to timharford.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.4 | Hey there. |
| 0:04.9 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:06.6 | Have you noticed the present day it feels pretty rocky? |
| 0:10.0 | Well, I think history can help. |
| 0:11.9 | What's more? |
| 0:12.5 | This little country of ours, the United States, it's turning 250 soon. |
| 0:16.9 | So how did we get here? |
| 0:18.4 | On this day, historians Nicole Hammer and Kelly Carter Jackson and I sit down to look at stories from the past, silly, surprising, deeply relevant, that feel like they have something to teach us about today. |
| 0:30.2 | This day, three times a week, you can find it wherever you're listening right now. |
| 0:41.4 | Pushkin. |
| 0:49.3 | Hello everyone. |
| 0:56.4 | The Cautionary Tales team is on a Christmas break at the moment, but I have a special cautionary tale for you from the archives. Do you believe in magic? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle certainly does in this |
| 1:05.3 | cautionary tale about a lie that gets out of control. I'll have another classic for you next week, |
| 1:11.9 | one that may help with your New Year's resolutions. |
| 1:15.2 | And then we'll be back in the new year |
| 1:17.7 | with plenty of brand new cautionary tales. |
| 1:21.6 | Enjoy the episode. |
| 1:26.9 | In May 1920, I heard that alleged photographs of fairies had been taken. |
| 1:34.7 | These are the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, |
| 1:40.4 | in a book titled The Coming of the Fairies. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.