Skipton

In the case of Miss Inman's elves, clever as they were— there was nothing of the natural grace and freedom of movement which characterized the wonderful cottingley fairy group among the more remarkable comments in the press was one from mr george a wade in the london evening news of december eighth nineteen twenty it told of a curious sequence of events in yorkshire and ran as follows are there real fairies in the land to-day the question has been raised by sir arthur conan doyle and there have been submitted photographs which purport to be those of actual little people experiences which have come within my own knowledge may help to throw a little light on this question as to whether there are real fairies actual elves and gnomes yet to be met with in the dales of yorkshire where the photographs are asserted to have been taken whilst spending a day last year with my friend mr halliwell sutcliffe the well-known novelist who lives in that district he told me to my intense surprise that he personally knew a schoolmaster not far from his home who had again and again insisted that he had seen talked with and had played with real fairies in some meadow not far away the novelist mentioned this to me as an actual curious fact for which he himself had no explanation but he said that the man was one whose education personality and character made him worthy of credence a man not likely to harbor a delusion or to wish to deceive others.

Whilst in the same district, I was informed by a man whom I knew to be thoroughly reliable that a young lady living in Skipton had mentioned to him more than once that she often went up to a spot in the Dales the name of which he gave, to play and dance with the fairies when he expressed astonishment at the statement she repeated it and averred that it was really true in chatting about the matter with my friend mr william riley the author of winderidge nether lie and gerry and ben a writer who knows the yorkshire moors and ales intimately mr riley asserted that though he had never seen actual fairies there yet he knew several trustworthy moorland people whose belief in them was unshakable and who persisted against all contradiction that they themselves had many times seen pixies at certain favoured spots in upper airedale and wafdale when some time later an article of mine on any of these things was published in a yorkshire newspaper there came a letter from a lady at a distance who stated that the account confirmed a strange experience which she had when on holiday in the same dale up above skipton she stated that one evening when walking alone in the higher portion of a slope of the hills to her intense astonishment she saw in a meadow close below her fairies and sprites playing and dancing in large numbers she imagined that she must be dreaming or under some hallucination so she pinched herself and rubbed her eyes to make sure that she was really awake convinced of this she looked again and still unmistakably saw the little people she gave a full account of how they played, of the long time she watched them, and how at length they vanished.

Without a doubt, she was convinced of the truth of her statement.

What can we make of it all? My own mind is open, but it is difficult to believe that so many persons, unknown to one another, should have conspired to state what is false.

It is a remarkable coincidence, if nothing more, that the girls in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's account The schoolmaster, mentioned by Mr. Sutcliffe, the young woman who came from Skipton, and the lady who wrote to the Yorkshire newspaper, should all put the spot where the fairies are to be seen almost within a mile or two of one another.

Are there real fairies to be met with there? End of Part 1 of Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Part 2 of The Coming of the Fairies THE MOST SEVERE ATTACK UPON THE FAIRY PICTURES SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN THAT OF MAJOR HALL EDWARDS, THE FAMOUS AUTHORITY UPON RADIUM IN THE BIRMINGHAM WEEKLY POST.

He said, What? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle takes it for granted that these photographs are real photographs of fairies, notwithstanding the fact that no evidence has so far been put forward to show exactly how they were produced.

you know, stations that are close or also offer something, you know, for me to do.

And I was looking at, I was looking at some places and Skipton came up.

Oh yeah, it's nice.

Yeah, it's like a 40 minute train ride.

Love that.

But, yeah, I didn't see you.

Made it to Skipton.

And Skipton has woods that are pretty accessible from just the town center.

yeah and to be fair I don't want to yeah and I'm a big fan of teachers I think I think they do a really difficult job I do I think they're a difficult it's a difficult job tough

circumstances if you're a fan of them because they're a breed on their own they can be difficult let's put it that way if you get a group of them together they only have one level of conversation and that's teaching but Final question then, I'm really interested whether you had any reports from my neck of the woods, so sort of Lancashire, I mean I know you said West Yorkshire which isn't a million miles away, but sort of Lancashire, East Lancashire, North Lancashire, Preston, Lancaster, Morecambe Bay, any sort of area around there, Clitheroe, Skipton? Anything come to

mind? Off the top of my head, Craig, I can't recite one off the top of my head.

So I've learned something today.

So kind of reestablish the district connectivity within the footprint of...

North Yorkshire, I think it's probably two and a half hours from Scarborough to Skipton.

Um, it's probably five times the size of London, and it's one council at Northallerton.

It's a long way away, isn't it? Yeah.