Omg Everyone's brain has their own little algorithm, that's why people tend to believe in things even if it's not there. Like the saying: if the human mind is looking for something, it will often find it.
when I was in first grade a girl who went to my church literally convinced me and a bunch of other girls that we WERE fairies and had to run away together to go to fairyland, i literally wrote a goodbye letter to my parents explaining everything lmfaooo
I have no memory of this but apparently when I was a kid this girl I knew told me she was a fairy but I wasn't and couldn't be one and I was so sad I cried.
This have no connection with fairies but this reminds me that when I was a kid I was convinced I had an ice power just because I've been using my dads mint shampoo that makes my head and hands feel icy cold for like 30mins. Thank God I'm not a talkative kid and didn't go around town telling others about it 😭
Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini having a falling-out over the existence of fairies is the exact kind of thing I come to this channel for (and Kaz's outfits✨)
Honestly makes me a bit sad, Harry Houdini was seeing a friend being taken in by tricksters and fraudsters and was trying to steer him out of it by using his own skills but instead was met with rejection and suspicion. It's a tragic story that repeats itself far too often.
I used to see fairies, gnomes and nature spirits as a kid. I believed in it 100%, after all seeing is believing, right? Then as I grew up i started to see ghosts, demons and ugly things. A spiritualist relative paraded me around to all her spiritualist friends for years, convincing me that not being able to sleep and dissociating 24hrs a day, barely being able to function in reality, was just the consequences of my "gift". Turns out I'm schizophrenic. I've been taking antipsychotics since i was 17 and this relative has refused to talk to me ever since, claiming my family was "killing a beautiful thing". It wasn't beautiful, it was terrifying and the worst years of my life, but yeah she still thinks I should just abandon my medication and let myself go crazy to feed her expectations. These things can and do go wrong frequently.
This makes me think about the fact that my family all insisted that I was having "visions from god" growing up when what I was experiencing was PTSD flashbacks, meltdowns, and panic attacks (usually with migraines involved in the meltdowns and panic attacks). It's really really messed up to tell a kid that something that they are experiencing that is awful is actually some special supernatural gift.
That happened to someone i knew with her ex. She Had hallucinations, seeing what she called angels. They terrified her. What did her Bf say? Yupp, those visions are real, it's a Gift, hoooray. Actively discouraged her from going to therapy and predicted that she would be locked Up forever If she went. Thankfully she got Out of that relationship and found a doctor who took her seriously and got her the treatments she needed. Shes married now with kids.
@@annabeinglazy5580 makes me happy that she's fine now and with people that love her!! we shouldn't have to deal with people's religious expectations on our mental health.
Photo expert: "You see these photos are real. See this blurring? That means the fairies were moving when the photo was taken." Conan Doyle: *gasp* Little girl: "Bruh that's just the paper moving in the wind"
I'm guessing that the excitement of the photo expert may have been slightly overstated by the spiritualists. I mean it's not like it would have actually been possible to deduce whether or not the fairies were made out of paper just from looking at a photo (even though they obviously are), so either the expert was like "I can't tell" or he was just extremely arrogant, which would be very funny.
@@hedgehog3180 It reminds me of when I read about a lab tech analyzing slides from the scabs of a Morgellon's patient. (That's the one where people think they have a mysterious parasite in their skin. They itch, scratch, get scabs, itch more, and so the cycle goes.) Tech: "These fibers are not from any known bacteria or parasite." Patient: "See!1!!! See!!!11!! They're clearly UNKNOWN PARASITES!!!!1! Me: "Those look like synthetic textile fibers. Just like when my acrylic sweater sheds into the slides I'm preparing." Synthetic fabrics are made by extruding the plastic material through a nozzle, like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, so the fibers are very smooth and featureless. They look very artificial--just like the "unknown parasites" in those slides.
I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies, There that should have caused a few of the little feckers to die 🧚🏼♀️🤣 Peace, happiness and solidarity from Dublin Eire 💚🇮🇪🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
@@gargamellix come to my country of Eire and I’ll show you babies who’ve had their toe’s nibbled off by fairies😳 I won’t of course because babies don’t exist 🤣🤪🤪🤪 From a totally ludicrous and insane Irish gay guy💚 Cashel O’Connolly 💚🇮🇪🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
It shocked me learning that Elsie Wright was such a talented artist and people usually just glosses over it. That woman entered art school being 13, then worked in a photo lab and made hand painted cards. Can you imagine being good at watercolours and analog photography of the time at 16 y/o only for people to remember you for a joke you made when you were a little girl? I would get out of the grave just to slap someone. Also, loved this video
We had a similar hoax in Mexico recently where a guy said he had a corpse of a fairy in a jar. People would line up around the block to pay to see it. Turns out it was just a tiny doll of the X-men character Pixie dipped in formaldehyde. It would be a pretty funny resolution except for the fact that he was killed shortly after.
Arthur Conan Doyle showing up where people least expect him in history is my favorite thing. He basically launched his writing career by making up a fake account of what happened to the Mary Celeste which is why we still talk about that particular ghost ship today (and why people think it was spelled Marie Celeste).
I remember reading that Doyle never wanted to be remembered as the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes, but I wonder if being known for being trolled by two little girls is any better lmao
There is a Shortstory (Sherlockholmes is actually many shortstories), were he "killed" Sherlock Holmes becouse he doesn't wanted to write it anymore. But many actually loved this series so it was contieneud as "Memories of Sherlock Holmes" or something.
this whole situation is like the most extreme version of when someone says something crazy with a striaght face as a joke, and when someon asks if theyr'e joking they double down to keep the joke going
The funny thing is that anyone who knows anything about art who looks at the pictures can instantly tell that they are two dimensional drawings. people who were fooled clearly were so desperate to see proof of fairy existence that any kind of image would have had the same effect.
You don't even need to know anything about art, you just need to know what paper looks like or like have done paper cuttings yourself. Like it's a fairly common children's activity and the fairies in the photos have the exact rough texture those kinds of cuttings were usually printed on. The thing I really find mysterious here is how easily people were fooled, or how many wanted to be fooled apparently because I can't imagine something like that stealing any headlines today.
Kaz blessing us once again. Ah, Arthur C. Doyle. What a life. Can't believe he was friends with Houdini. Houdini: "My mother never learned English." Doyle's wife: "Are you sure about that?"
Houdini: So here's how I do this magic trick...in fact I'll spend the next several years exposing all the psychic I can as fraud Arthur Conan Doyle: You're a Wizard, Harry
to be fair, i know several people whose comprehension of English and/or Spanish varies depending on how much they want to understand what is being said.
There's a great book called The Witch of Lime Street that discusses their friendship (and the spiritualist movement and the scientific study of it). Lots of fun information there.
Harry Houdini and his wife had a secret code word or phrase to be used after one's death if it somehow turned out medium calling on spirits was actually real. Those two were dedicated skeptics even after death
Did you know he died on Halloween? She waited on Halloween for a message from him for many many years. Of course, it never came. I doubt she really expected it.
I loved Fairy Tale as a kid. My favorite part wasn't about the fairies but the side plot where the girls make friends with the disfigured soldier. It taught me a a young child that just because someone looks frightening, does not make them a bad person.
My dad always asks people for their fairy/folk stories whenever we travel. A hotel employee in London said there were fairies in the park across the street and several people in Iceland told us their believed in trolls, or at least their grandma did and they loved her stories about them.
If I had a nickel for every time a British author of a worldwide popular book series developed an irrational obsession that tarnished their reputation and alienated people I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice. 🕵️🧚♀️🧙♂️🏳️⚧️
I guess at least being obsessed with fairies existing isn't really harmful to anyone. A certain other British author's obsession is genuinely hurting people
@@hellformichelle if it weren’t for the Harry Houdini drama I’d agree. But the whole shitshow of Doyle’s wife poorly pretending to have contacted Houdini’s dead mom and Doyle himself doubling down by insisting his former friend was ‘lying’ about not having actual magic powers really put a bad taste in my mouth
I love that in the end when they finally confessed and explained they were just having a little fun but these grown men took it so seriously, they stop short and say "well except for that last one- that one was real..." They were still screwin' with us! All the way to the end, still getting grown men to question reality. My heroes
And only relatively well off people could afford a camera or to have their photograph taken. The general public did not understand how photography worked, so I can see how this would have fooled so many people. The girls did this for fun, some of the adults that grabbed onto it did so for....profit.
one day when i was a kid, this girl in my class brought in a photo of her asleep in her bed with a fairy barbie photoshopped as if it was flying next to her pillow and tried to pass it off as photographic proof of the tooth fairy. i pointed out that it was clearly photoshopped, and pretty much everyone insisted i was wrong and was mad at me for the rest of the day. it sucked lol. anyways - great video (as per usual) !
It really sucked to be the kid who knew better a lot of the time, me and another kid once got in an argument with the entire class over whether there was lead in pencils and this was like in 7th grade.
@@hedgehog3180 Fr i can relate, it honestly was pretty difficult staying humble and not developing a sense of "everyone is an idiot so why should i listen to them?" I only had the understanding i did bc i was forced to mature really quickly, but DAMN did it frustrate me trying to explain stuff to my peers
My grandmother, born in 1902, was a lifelong theosophist and often left votive offerings for the fairies in our garden. Usually beer. Perhaps it was used as a slug bait and not for the fairies at all. Then again we were Germans in Texas, and I don't recall what happened to all the rest of the six-pack of Shiner beer.
German in Texas that must have been fun! Are Germans common in Texas? I'm from upper NYS so I don't know what kind of European is common in Texas. Here in my area of NYS we commonly have Polish, Germans, Irish, and Italians.
@@ariannasilva4462 In the 1850's many German and other European families immigrated to Texas. Italian, Polish, Greek, and Czech communities that spoke Spanish before they spoke English were within cycling distance from my home. My uncles and cousins worked their way through college playing accordion in various Mexican and polka bands.
I used to have a tradition with my grandma where she'd hide a set of little wooden fairy figurines for me to find each time I'd come over to her house. Of course I knew they were fake, but I did convince myself that the statues moved of their own volition rather than my grandma moving them. The statues were just wood, but the *real* fairies made them move in my mind. I'm glad that my deeply Christian grandma was able to still add some magic to my childhood
Can we all take a moment to appreciate Kaz's perfect staging and costume for every video they do? Could you please cover more content like this? Ghosts and fairy's and cryptids: I was *obsessed* with weird 90's "Believe it or not" type content as a child and seeing it covered so well fills me with joy! Edited to correct spelling and pronouns.
i’m surprised i never saw any of these photos, because i was absolutely obsessed with fairies when i was little. i was particularly into building little fairy houses and cicely mary barker’s flower fairy illustrations.
When I was around 8, I convinced some younger girls that there were fairies living in the courtyard of a nearby apartment complex. I wrote tiny notes and hid them under rocks. When the girls found them, I said they were messages from fairies. At first, they didn't believe me, but, one time, I wrote a note that said something magical would happen that day at exactly 6 o'clock. Being 8, I didn't think ahead and plan for what the "something magical" might be, so around 5:30, I was panicking, desperately trying to come up with a "trick" they would believe. At 5:59, it was getting dark, and I was just about to give up, tell them the truth, and go home, when, suddenly, right at 6 pm, all the lights in the city came on! This happened every night, but, for some reason - maybe because it had rained recently and/or something to do with the time of year - it was very noticeable and, for a few minutes, it looked like everything was shining and gold. I couldn't have come up with a better trick! The girls were amazed, and, after that, they believed the fairies were real. Two of the girls, who were sisters, moved away less than a year later, and then my family moved the next year, but they didn't stop believing during the time I knew them. I wonder if they remember it today. That was a long time ago.
A couple of nightly talented kids who understood the technology of the time! And knew the methods of how to make it look like they did not fake it! Incredibly impressive!
In the first Sherlockholmes story (it is multiple shortstory), Sherlock got some what fooled by a woman. After that he never made fun of womans smartness.
Hey I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your channel. I'm a white, Midwestern dude that was raised christian on a farm/ranch. You have a perspective that once upon a time I would've judged negatively (sorry, I was a cunt) I've grown quite a lot, and I've really enjoyed your videos about queer history. It's obviously not something I learned about in my small town school or Christian household, and I'm thankful to know more about the side of history I was prevented from learning. It's been incredibly eye opening for me. Anyways, this is way too long, hope you're doing well, take care and thanks for the videos.
This is so awesome 😊. One of the good things about the internet is getting to learn about things we never knew about. I grew up in a pretty opposite situation as you, we are Christian, but just very open, but I’m still constantly learning things!
I clicked on this right away and now I’m realizing once I finish this there’s no more Kaz content till the next 😭. Your channel is like a show I want to drag out because I know once I watch the finale I have to wait again. Thank you for the fantastically entertaining and insightful educational videos. And this comment does not come with any pressure, I’d rather have your quality and thoughtfulness than a video everyday. You so quickly went to the top of my list for favorite channels once I discovered your channel and watched all your videos. THANK YOU!
You've absolutely outdone yourself with the set, costuming and lighting in this one! I was obsessed with fairies as a child, I built them houses and left them offerings in my garden, wrote them letters that my mother replied to in the tiniest hand writing. I really appreciate that it was encouraged. My grandfather was a magician and according to my grandmother, adults when offered illusions for entertainment at parties were often very hostile, angry at the mere idea that you would try and deceive them because they knew it was a trick but just didn't know how it was done. He ended up switching to exclusively entertaining children as a magician and made a decent career of it. My favourite trick of his was always one where goblins stole gold from the fairies house and the mischief between the two. Sceptical, heckling children got to meet a teeny tiny guillotine to stick their finger in if they were really brave enough that it was all just a trick. Lol
Thank you for talking about these photos. These pictures and they're story, are ingrained into mind since my childhood. I was obsessed with the Fae as a little kid and I still love their lore now. Also your costume is beautiful, Kaz. You are an actual far creature.
I love how Kaz pairs these deeply researched video essays with appropriately matching glamorous outfits Also my fav fairy story was Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. I was super into the Disney Fairies series and also Gail Carson Levine
As a child I was thoroughly convinced that we had fairies in our garden although I never saw them myself. I wrote them tiny letters, laid out fruit and even sewed tiny petal dresses for them. Strangely enough, they only wrote back when my half sister, who is 7 years older than me, came home for the weekend ^^
I just want to say, your videos have brought me an immense amount of comfort and enjoyment since I first found your channel about a year ago. Thank you for the effort you put in to them. Keep up the amazing work
You may’ve heard the expression “Like counting the angels on the head of a pin!” used to ridicule some intricate and time-consuming task which ultimately leads nowhere … well, it springs from a bizarre debate which, in Victorian times, gained widespread popularity! Scientists teamed up with theologians to calculate the size of, uh, _angels,_ (?!?) generating newspaper headlines, as well as heated debates across salons, smoking rooms, and dining room tables. Might make an interesting episode?
Do you have any sources for this? I always heard that this was a Victorian phrase made up specifically to ridicule medieval people as overly superstitious and foolish.
@@hedgehog3180 - Sure! To be clear, and as I wrote in my original comment, the *phrase* “like counting angels on the head of a pin” *is* used to ridicule intricate and time-consuming tasks which lead nowhere, but the *debate* from which that phrase sprang was very, very *real!* In broad terms, it’s called the "angelic place" or "angelic extension" debate, and it was originated by and conducted most visibly between Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham during the medieval era. Sources for this include Thomas Aquinas' _Summa Theologiae,_ in questions 50-64 of the Prima Pars, John Duns Scotus' _Ordinatio,_ in distinction 3, questions 1-3, and William of Ockham's _Summa Logicae,_ book 2, chapters 14-16. (In summary: Aquinas believed one could count the number of angels in a given location, the other two did not. Whether Aquinas used the specific example of “angels dancing on the head of a pin” is debated: the phrase first appears in writing in William Birchley’s _The Life of William Chillingworth_ in 1680, a full 400 years after the debate began, but Birchley may have been drawing on oral tradition, and the phrase may have originated with Aquinas.) So anywho, in the Victorian era spiritualism and science both grip the U.K.’s imagination equally, and within the circles of drawing room intelligentsia it does not seem outlandish to think science may complement spiritualism, i.e. by allowing us to photograph faerie folk, send telegrams to the dead, and so on. Into this climate of febrile imaginations, in 1869 Henry Parry Liddon - an Anglican theologian and a Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral - delivers a wildly popular series of lectures titled _Some Elements of Religion_ (later published as a book), and in his fifth lecture he revives in the public imagination the debate on “angelic extension” by discussing the nature of angels and their relation to space, and whether angels could occupy the same space without displacement. And the more luminaries like Doyle, Yeats, and Blavatsky became preoccupied with empirically proving their spiritualist beliefs, so all the more did the phrase “like counting how many angels dance on the head of a pin” regain currency for satirizing such preoccupations - wildly baroque preoccupations generally, but also those preoccupations concerning the volume of angels specifically … now 600 years after that debate seemingly first originated I hope that helps?
Fairies were one of my first special interests that I remember! I was OBSESSED with all things fairy, from tinker bell to collecting like a hundred of fairy figurines! Another dazzling video so visually stunning and funny like a true fae! 🧚♂️✨💕
I was so obsessed with fairies as a kid and even through my teen years, and I've recently begun a journey to recapture some of that magic, so this video dropped at a perfect time. Also this set is how I want my house to look all the time 10/10
I feel so happy watching this! These are stories from my hometown, I heard the stories from my grandad who grew up in Cottingley, they’re such an integral part of our folklore!! It’s lovely hearing someone overseas talk about it :) thank you for doing it justice!
My Nan got me the most beautiful illustrated fairy book before she died and I cherish it so much. Been obsessed with fairies for ages - me and my friends used to pretend we were the rainbow fairies from the books! I’ve studied the photos when I was doing art, love the whole spiritualist movement. I wld have happily gone along with it if I was alive then haha
I think I had the same book in my own childhood! I dont remember much but wasn't there something about baby fairies either growing wings or finding their wings? I remember the rainbow fairies :)
Even if the Cottingley fairies photo is a hoax, I still always believe in the existence of fairies no matter what. Here are some supposedly true stories about fairies: In 1940, two sisters looked out of their bedroom window and saw a white-bearded little man in a red, pointed hat, driving a tiny car in circles around their lawn. Also recorded is the fairy aircraft seen by some children in Hertford. A miniature biplane, with a wingspan of about a foot, swooped over their garden fence. It landed briefly, almost hitting a dustbin, and then took off again, its leather-helmeted pilot waving a cheerful goodbye as he flew off. A correspondent to The Ley Hunter magazine in 1973, out walking near Alderwasley, in Derbyshire, went to doze in the sunshine on small, grassy mound. He woke to find a strange, little man beside him, "a dumpy little chap" whose clothes were all "the same colour as the grass". They spoke, or rather "exchanged thoughts" and the writer learned that the little man had the important job of "breaking down decaying materials into food for plants". Tryggvi Emilsson, a founder of Iceland's Communist Party, was fond of relating an incident that happened to him at the age of fourteen. He became stuck in a mountain crevice while rescuing one of the family's lambs. Reconciled to spending an uncomfortable night, he was surprised when he found a young girl looking at him. She said she came from a farm nearby, pointing to it. Now the boy was even more astonished, as he had walked these mountains all his life and had never known of another farm in the area. The girl laughed, saying: "You wouldn't have. We come from a world parallel to yours." At that moment, the girl said her father was calling her back and she ran off. Writing in Fortean Times 201, Claire Smith said that Emilsson continued to vist those hills for the rest of his life, "..... until his death in 1986, but never saw the girl or the farm again".
I'm weirdly charmed by the description of the matter-of-fact workman fairy. Like, instead of a delicate pirouetting creature, he's just going around with a toolbelt and a little beard and moth wings, making sure the roofs don't leak.
When I was a teenager I had a minor obsession with researching various folklore and mythologies from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and the surrounding islands. It started an appreciation of faeries and their more brutal and mischievous past. I stumbled across this story during that time, but to me it was just a footnote during wider searches for knowledge. I never knew there was a continuation in 1965 and later in the 1970s. That said, I think a good topic for a video would be a look on changing views of the fae from the 1300s to the 1800s, mixing of mythologies from the German, French, British, and Irish ideas of fae, the deconstruction of myths like Black Anais, and how that created a backlash to Victorian-era intellectualism and birthed the Art Nouveau movement that supplanted Beaux Arts starting around 1895. It'd fit in nicely with the lineup of videos you've had going on recently.
when i was a kid i used to leave a jar outside every night with a dandelion pillow, a few leaf blankets and little things like an acorn or a crab apple. i would check on the jars every morning and take the movement of anything inside the jar as definitive proof that faeries were real and had been taking a nap inside of the jar overnight
KAZZ!!! That opening “do you believe in fairies” looking like that, sitting in a set like that! I’m OBSESSED! 13 seconds in and I am just in love with this content ✨💕🧚
You never fail to deliver a high quality documentary, Kaz. A good and obscure story treated to great research and an empathetic reading, delivered in these beautiful visuals (this video in particular looks STUNNING). You really make something special with each one of these.
Pokemon's fairy types canonically killing dragons usually 4x larger than they are, being accurate and deliberate hunters, and some even attacking children, while usually being rounded shapes and soft colors with very few taking human shape is probably the only remaining pop culture representation for classic Faerie stories in their original form and im all for it.
One of my favorite things about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was that it emphasized that fairies are usually wicked and *not your friends* in traditional lore. But I do like the friendlier fairies of the 20th century as well. I had one of those “pull the string and they fly off” kind of fairies in the 90s. My parents sold it at a garage sale and I didn’t know until I saw someone leaving with it 😭
Fairies were one of my first hyperfixations as a neurodivergent kid! This was such an interesting watch, thank you for all the effort you put into the video
Your videos are consistently well-researched and high quality. You deserve far more attention than you’re currently getting, so here’s my contribution to the all-important algorithm. Thank you for creating what you do.
This set and costume goes so completely hard. The lighting is just BEAUTIFUL and i can’t stop staring at how it glistens on the iridescent wings!!!! Wow !!!!!!!
You deserve a billion subscribers. All of your videos are so incredibly well done, and not just the content and historical accuracy. The sets you make, your period clothing, and your perfect easy to understand enunciation are phenomenal. Never stop doing this!
I loved "Fairy Tale a true story" as a kid. I spent endless hours building fairy houses in my yard and 8-year-old me would be horrified that I no longer believe in them. Though I still love the magic of the stories around them. I love the history of the folklore and saying how that changed with industrial revolution. This video is awesome and speaks to me on many levels!
You know what. I envy 90's kids who watched this more nicer versions of faeries. I was introduce to the idea of The Fae with The Spiderwick Chronicles (and my flamly is half celtic, so they knew what they were doing). And if you haven't scene it, Spiderwick Chronicles pretty much shows fairies as the original stories presented them: Monstrous, ugly, mischeveous and alien. It creeped me the fuck out.
@@dylantennant6594 I also grew up reading the spider went chronicle books. I know I saw the movie, but I don't remember it very well. I really enjoy all of those for trails of fairies. Both this sweet flower variety and the more traditional less nice ones.
@@dylantennant6594 I loved Spiderwick as a child mainly because it presented all of these creatures in the same way as an encyclopedia would present real creatures. Plus I loved the whole thing about fighting them using a mix of magical folklore and logic. I also for that reason loved Artemis Fowl, because it had the element of beating magical creatures with smarts, modern technology and ancient folklore.
I don't think belief in them is dead so much as it has become solely "stories for children" and even the children might not believe them but just play along because it's fun. My parents did some stuff with them around Christmas since in Denmark the main belief is in gnomes/elves and they supposedly live in every house but you have to give them gifts to make them happy. I don't think I ever really believed in it but I went along with it for fun and because it was an opportunity to play some pranks on my parents.
I remember being so transfixed by those photos; I think there was a little book series in the late 90s about this (as well as a gorgeously illustrated 'pressed fairy' book around the same time). Also, you look amazing! love the glitter and atmospheric lighting/set decor.
I did a photography project in college based on the Cottingley Fairies images! I used double exposure and it was sooo difficult but satisfying. Something about using old film cameras gives it a magical feel. You look amazing by the way 🧚🏽♀️
The weird thing is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- the creator of the ultimate symbol of logic and investigation, Mr Sherlock Holmes -- firmly believed the fairies were real to the end of his life.
i too was obsessed with fairies as a kid and made fairy houses aplenty! i remember reading about this story and being fascinated by it. great video as always!!
The way I immediately clicked this video. (Especially after I bought The Cottingly Secret, without realizing it was a romance novel 🤦🏻♀️) I can’t remember a time fairies didn’t have me in a chokehold. I carried a collection of Grimm’s fairy tales with me for a while in elementary school, hit peak obsession when I found the Spiderwick Chronicles. Winx, Tinkerbell, the color fairy books, and now, cultural folklore research.
there was a fairyology book at my local library i was obsessed with as a kid, and it had these pictures in it. i knew the pictures themselves were fake, but i still made tiny houses in the woods near my house and left out fruits and sugar water for the fairies. very fond memories :,)
I know this isn’t the point of the video but you look amazing! Thank you for all the work you put into your videos! Both the research and the aesthetics! It’s really appreciated! 💖
There was a book called “Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy book” released in early 90s. I was in college at the time and my friends and I were highly amused by it. It was a parody based on this story, but I never really knew much about the true story until now. You still couldn’t just Google things then, and I didn’t really have time to research it. I hadn’t thought about it in years. I wonder if anyone else in the comments is familiar with that book? Thanks for this great video.
Just dropping in to say yes, it was written by Terry Jones and Brian Froud, who worked on Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. Amazing book. Some of the fairy illustrations are, how to put it, NSFW!
I lived very close to cottingley growing up and was an avid believer in fairies. When I was around 10, my friend and I explored around cottingley and found the beck where the famous picture was taken. It was covered in litter and the water was polluted 😢💔
I listen to your videos while I draw and honestly thank you for the company. Also I love your content a lot, it's super interesting and I love how you narrate!
I’ve always absolutely loved fairies, especially since my name (Avery) means Ruler of the Elves. As I child I was always given toys and room decor themed around elves and fairies, so fairies have always been a part of my life. Both the lighter and darker sides of fairy folklore are so fascinating.
Barely started the much anticipated video and cannot get over the soft dreamlike fairyland you have conjured. The clothes, the makeup, the iridescent wings? Breathtaking. Not on;y to give intriguing and cogent lectures but you do so while honoring the themes and aesthetics visually?? Insane.
Thank goodness for you and our very similar mini-obsessions! Why, yes, I was a faerie child… err, that is, I was captivated by faeries as a child (still am, who am I kidding) and also was quite obsessed with the movie Fairytale in the ‘90s (in which I may have developed a sliiiiight crush on Harvey Keitel as Houdini). I was repeatedly reprimanded for doodling all kinds of faeries in the margins of my church service pamphlets (before I boycotted church entirely at age 11 and went on to live a degenerate, queer, pagan life), was frequently to be seen frolicking about my countryside home barefoot and in search of faerie groves, begged my mother for help in constructing tiny dwellings and paraphernalia for them out of acorns, sticks, and glue, and was an avid collector of “faerie associated things” like illustrations of fae made into stickers by humans and tiny nests found in the forest (no doubt belonging to some minuscule bird or other) and leaves that were just a tad too small 😆 I also believed in Borrowers, but that’s a different topic. In short, all of this was right up my alley. Bit of trivia on the endless fuckwittery of Ol’ Doyle (bless you for reporting on his antics, keep spreading the word) and his friendship with Harry H: there’s an interesting dramatisation of it called “Impossible” by The Spontaneity Shop that played the Edinburgh fringe fest a few years back and I believe it’s available to watch on Vimeo, if you’re interested. To this day it is still difficult to reconcile the fact that the creator of one of the most dazzlingly analytical minds in all of fiction was himself a determinedly self-delusional dunce whose buffoonery is still creating little ripples in society… smdh. Love the research, imagination, and passion you put into your videos! Absolutely gorgeous. Oh and also this costume deserves another outing at some point 👌🏻😊🏳️🌈💖🧚✨
Pixie Hollow Fairies and those old Flower Fairy books had me by the throat as a child. I loved fairies so much I just knew they had to be real. It makes me so happy to think back about it
I clicked on this video, excited to see your costume, makeup and set...but stayed for the story! Thank you for your wonderful videos! I appreciate all your research and design work...as well as your awesome personality!
AHH I'm so happy you mentioned Fairy Tale!! I had this movie on VHS as a kid and LOVED IT! I actually completely forgot about it until I saw this video!!
Ooh I’m excited about this! Kaz you come up with such a fascinating variety of topics! I read a novel based on this story, and of course in comes up in almost any discussion of Arthur Conan Doyle. Belief in (and some fear of) “the fae” is still holding on in some places. But I feel like even believers should’ve been suspicious of those pictures; the fairies look so flat, and the girls look barely interested in the supposedly real fairies they’re “playing” with. Then again they fell for a lot of spiritualist chicanery, too.
the fairies look obviously fake to us, because we've seen thousands of pictures and even more video, and we know much more about lighting and 3-d shapes being represented in 2-d form than people did back then. even if we don't know consciously what's wrong, we still know that what we're seeing really isn't up to video game standards.
@@perfectallycromulent Photography had been around over 60 years by then. Some people didn’t buy it, but others were desperate to. I submit it’s much just like some people believing in obviously fake things today.
@@MegCazalet computers had been around for 60 years by the 1990s, most people knew nothing about them. photography was still a relatively expensive technology then, and most people saw crappy quality images in news papers and on film reels that had been played tons of times. sure, some wanted to believe, but plenty of people then couldn't tell those pictures weren't real.
The looks on the girls faces wouldn't have been odd since exposure times were fairly long for cameras back then so you needed to have a facial expression you could hold still for at least a few seconds. That however does beg another question of if the faries were supposedly mid movement then how did they show up so clearly on the photo?
I'd love to see a video about the author Lord Dunsany. If you aren’t familiar, he was an early fantasy writer who influenced Tolkein, Lovecraft, and many others.
Could you just imagine how the algorythms would have rot Arthur Conan Doyle's mind if he had access to social media back then.
hed die of a heart attack from seeing so many chain-mail posts all the time
He would totally fall down the Q hole.
@@tjenadonn6158 You sure?
Omg
Everyone's brain has their own little algorithm, that's why people tend to believe in things even if it's not there. Like the saying: if the human mind is looking for something, it will often find it.
He would be deeper in the rabbit hole than Alice lmao.
when I was in first grade a girl who went to my church literally convinced me and a bunch of other girls that we WERE fairies and had to run away together to go to fairyland, i literally wrote a goodbye letter to my parents explaining everything lmfaooo
@Marie it’s def buried somewhere in an old diary at my parents house
I have no memory of this but apparently when I was a kid this girl I knew told me she was a fairy but I wasn't and couldn't be one and I was so sad I cried.
Please tell me they read it!!!
This have no connection with fairies but this reminds me that when I was a kid I was convinced I had an ice power just because I've been using my dads mint shampoo that makes my head and hands feel icy cold for like 30mins. Thank God I'm not a talkative kid and didn't go around town telling others about it 😭
@@Spiderpunkrocks haha lol
Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini having a falling-out over the existence of fairies is the exact kind of thing I come to this channel for (and Kaz's outfits✨)
Came here to say the same thing! 🥦
Honestly makes me a bit sad, Harry Houdini was seeing a friend being taken in by tricksters and fraudsters and was trying to steer him out of it by using his own skills but instead was met with rejection and suspicion. It's a tragic story that repeats itself far too often.
I used to see fairies, gnomes and nature spirits as a kid. I believed in it 100%, after all seeing is believing, right? Then as I grew up i started to see ghosts, demons and ugly things. A spiritualist relative paraded me around to all her spiritualist friends for years, convincing me that not being able to sleep and dissociating 24hrs a day, barely being able to function in reality, was just the consequences of my "gift". Turns out I'm schizophrenic. I've been taking antipsychotics since i was 17 and this relative has refused to talk to me ever since, claiming my family was "killing a beautiful thing". It wasn't beautiful, it was terrifying and the worst years of my life, but yeah she still thinks I should just abandon my medication and let myself go crazy to feed her expectations. These things can and do go wrong frequently.
This makes me think about the fact that my family all insisted that I was having "visions from god" growing up when what I was experiencing was PTSD flashbacks, meltdowns, and panic attacks (usually with migraines involved in the meltdowns and panic attacks). It's really really messed up to tell a kid that something that they are experiencing that is awful is actually some special supernatural gift.
That happened to someone i knew with her ex. She Had hallucinations, seeing what she called angels. They terrified her. What did her Bf say? Yupp, those visions are real, it's a Gift, hoooray. Actively discouraged her from going to therapy and predicted that she would be locked Up forever If she went.
Thankfully she got Out of that relationship and found a doctor who took her seriously and got her the treatments she needed. Shes married now with kids.
@@tahlialysse wow I'm so sorry you went through that, it's so awful. hope you're doing better now!!
@@annabeinglazy5580 makes me happy that she's fine now and with people that love her!! we shouldn't have to deal with people's religious expectations on our mental health.
I was about to say sounds like you're schizophrenic I had a friend who was the same way tbh
Photo expert: "You see these photos are real. See this blurring? That means the fairies were moving when the photo was taken."
Conan Doyle: *gasp*
Little girl: "Bruh that's just the paper moving in the wind"
I'm guessing that the excitement of the photo expert may have been slightly overstated by the spiritualists. I mean it's not like it would have actually been possible to deduce whether or not the fairies were made out of paper just from looking at a photo (even though they obviously are), so either the expert was like "I can't tell" or he was just extremely arrogant, which would be very funny.
@@hedgehog3180 It reminds me of when I read about a lab tech analyzing slides from the scabs of a Morgellon's patient. (That's the one where people think they have a mysterious parasite in their skin. They itch, scratch, get scabs, itch more, and so the cycle goes.)
Tech: "These fibers are not from any known bacteria or parasite."
Patient: "See!1!!! See!!!11!! They're clearly UNKNOWN PARASITES!!!!1!
Me: "Those look like synthetic textile fibers. Just like when my acrylic sweater sheds into the slides I'm preparing."
Synthetic fabrics are made by extruding the plastic material through a nozzle, like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, so the fibers are very smooth and featureless. They look very artificial--just like the "unknown parasites" in those slides.
You claim fairies aren’t real yet there’s a gorgeously dressed one right in the first frame, curious
Damn, you got 'em
SMOOTH
Right? "Fairies do not exist" - that's exactly what a fairy would say.
I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,I don’t believe in fairies,
There that should have caused a few of the little feckers to die 🧚🏼♀️🤣
Peace, happiness and solidarity from Dublin Eire 💚🇮🇪🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
@@gargamellix come to my country of Eire and I’ll show you babies who’ve had their toe’s nibbled off by fairies😳 I won’t of course because babies don’t exist 🤣🤪🤪🤪
From a totally ludicrous and insane Irish gay guy💚
Cashel O’Connolly 💚🇮🇪🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
It shocked me learning that Elsie Wright was such a talented artist and people usually just glosses over it. That woman entered art school being 13, then worked in a photo lab and made hand painted cards. Can you imagine being good at watercolours and analog photography of the time at 16 y/o only for people to remember you for a joke you made when you were a little girl? I would get out of the grave just to slap someone.
Also, loved this video
to be fair her art was good enough to fool several adults for the sum of their lives
@@technopoptart I only just found out they’re not real now
@@KarmasAbutch that is fair! it is good work and a style that has stood up to time
@@technopoptart haha thx for having my back 👊
I was a kid then and hadn’t thought to check since so technically I still believed 😂
We had a similar hoax in Mexico recently where a guy said he had a corpse of a fairy in a jar. People would line up around the block to pay to see it. Turns out it was just a tiny doll of the X-men character Pixie dipped in formaldehyde. It would be a pretty funny resolution except for the fact that he was killed shortly after.
😧
I think I remember that... Poor guy, it's not his fault people were so naive tho
Is not the fault of the ppl also, to kill him... 😂 But also :(
There’s an artist on TikTok who creates mummified fairy corpses that are weirdly beautiful… I may need one 😂
@@bitchenboutique6953 sounds interesting, what's their @?
Arthur Conan Doyle showing up where people least expect him in history is my favorite thing. He basically launched his writing career by making up a fake account of what happened to the Mary Celeste which is why we still talk about that particular ghost ship today (and why people think it was spelled Marie Celeste).
I just love that they were so sensitive about these peoples' grief that they waited until the parties concerned had died
I remember reading that Doyle never wanted to be remembered as the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes, but I wonder if being known for being trolled by two little girls is any better lmao
Perhaps he would want to be remembered for his involvement in the case of George Edalji?
Or "the friend Houdini was constantly trying to debunk spiritualism to."
There is a Shortstory (Sherlockholmes is actually many shortstories), were he "killed" Sherlock Holmes becouse he doesn't wanted to write it anymore. But many actually loved this series so it was contieneud as "Memories of Sherlock Holmes" or something.
this whole situation is like the most extreme version of when someone says something crazy with a striaght face as a joke, and when someon asks if theyr'e joking they double down to keep the joke going
The funny thing is that anyone who knows anything about art who looks at the pictures can instantly tell that they are two dimensional drawings. people who were fooled clearly were so desperate to see proof of fairy existence that any kind of image would have had the same effect.
You don't even need to know anything about art, you just need to know what paper looks like or like have done paper cuttings yourself. Like it's a fairly common children's activity and the fairies in the photos have the exact rough texture those kinds of cuttings were usually printed on. The thing I really find mysterious here is how easily people were fooled, or how many wanted to be fooled apparently because I can't imagine something like that stealing any headlines today.
Kaz blessing us once again. Ah, Arthur C. Doyle. What a life. Can't believe he was friends with Houdini.
Houdini: "My mother never learned English."
Doyle's wife: "Are you sure about that?"
Houdini: So here's how I do this magic trick...in fact I'll spend the next several years exposing all the psychic I can as fraud
Arthur Conan Doyle: You're a Wizard, Harry
@@Redem10 this took me out 😂
to be fair, i know several people whose comprehension of English and/or Spanish varies depending on how much they want to understand what is being said.
There's a great book called The Witch of Lime Street that discusses their friendship (and the spiritualist movement and the scientific study of it). Lots of fun information there.
@@adamlivingston6599 I'm definitely checking that out. Thank you for the information!
Harry Houdini and his wife had a secret code word or phrase to be used after one's death if it somehow turned out medium calling on spirits was actually real.
Those two were dedicated skeptics even after death
Did you know he died on Halloween? She waited on Halloween for a message from him for many many years. Of course, it never came. I doubt she really expected it.
I loved Fairy Tale as a kid. My favorite part wasn't about the fairies but the side plot where the girls make friends with the disfigured soldier. It taught me a a young child that just because someone looks frightening, does not make them a bad person.
so true, it’s such a good movie
My dad always asks people for their fairy/folk stories whenever we travel. A hotel employee in London said there were fairies in the park across the street and several people in Iceland told us their believed in trolls, or at least their grandma did and they loved her stories about them.
If I had a nickel for every time a British author of a worldwide popular book series developed an irrational obsession that tarnished their reputation and alienated people I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.
🕵️🧚♀️🧙♂️🏳️⚧️
I mean most British authors have irrational obsessions. Like JRR Tolkien was obsessed with pranks
I guess at least being obsessed with fairies existing isn't really harmful to anyone. A certain other British author's obsession is genuinely hurting people
@@purple-flowers did his obsession with pranking tarnish his reputation?
@@hellformichelle if it weren’t for the Harry Houdini drama I’d agree. But the whole shitshow of Doyle’s wife poorly pretending to have contacted Houdini’s dead mom and Doyle himself doubling down by insisting his former friend was ‘lying’ about not having actual magic powers really put a bad taste in my mouth
Well, let me tell you a story about Lewis Carroll.... Ah, better not. You wouldn't like it. How about Roald Dahl?
I love that in the end when they finally confessed and explained they were just having a little fun but these grown men took it so seriously, they stop short and say "well except for that last one- that one was real..." They were still screwin' with us! All the way to the end, still getting grown men to question reality. My heroes
Who needs fairies when the real mischevious tricksters are humans? :D
And only relatively well off people could afford a camera or to have their photograph taken. The general public did not understand how photography worked, so I can see how this would have fooled so many people.
The girls did this for fun, some of the adults that grabbed onto it did so for....profit.
I wasn't really into fairies but i was obsessed with mermaids. Would love to see you do a video on mermaids.
one day when i was a kid, this girl in my class brought in a photo of her asleep in her bed with a fairy barbie photoshopped as if it was flying next to her pillow and tried to pass it off as photographic proof of the tooth fairy. i pointed out that it was clearly photoshopped, and pretty much everyone insisted i was wrong and was mad at me for the rest of the day. it sucked lol. anyways - great video (as per usual) !
i remember something similar happening to me as a kid and also calling it out lol
It really sucked to be the kid who knew better a lot of the time, me and another kid once got in an argument with the entire class over whether there was lead in pencils and this was like in 7th grade.
@@hedgehog3180
Fr i can relate, it honestly was pretty difficult staying humble and not developing a sense of "everyone is an idiot so why should i listen to them?" I only had the understanding i did bc i was forced to mature really quickly, but DAMN did it frustrate me trying to explain stuff to my peers
My grandmother, born in 1902, was a lifelong theosophist and often left votive offerings for the fairies in our garden. Usually beer. Perhaps it was used as a slug bait and not for the fairies at all. Then again we were Germans in Texas, and I don't recall what happened to all the rest of the six-pack of Shiner beer.
German in Texas that must have been fun! Are Germans common in Texas? I'm from upper NYS so I don't know what kind of European is common in Texas. Here in my area of NYS we commonly have Polish, Germans, Irish, and Italians.
Wait. She's german and she believes in Faeries? You sure she wasn't looking an Hinzlemann? Just thinking culturally, beer is a way to pacify them.
@@ariannasilva4462 In the 1850's many German and other European families immigrated to Texas. Italian, Polish, Greek, and Czech communities that spoke Spanish before they spoke English were within cycling distance from my home. My uncles and cousins worked their way through college playing accordion in various Mexican and polka bands.
@@dylantennant6594 She thought our family might be changelings since we do have lovely kinda pointy ears.
@@dylantennant6594 A lot of Germanic and nordic folklore is similar to celtic. They all mixed. In Norway they’re called Nissen.
The set, the outfit, the content, just…*chefs kiss*
Kaz never disappoints
I used to have a tradition with my grandma where she'd hide a set of little wooden fairy figurines for me to find each time I'd come over to her house. Of course I knew they were fake, but I did convince myself that the statues moved of their own volition rather than my grandma moving them. The statues were just wood, but the *real* fairies made them move in my mind. I'm glad that my deeply Christian grandma was able to still add some magic to my childhood
Can we all take a moment to appreciate Kaz's perfect staging and costume for every video they do?
Could you please cover more content like this? Ghosts and fairy's and cryptids: I was *obsessed* with weird 90's "Believe it or not" type content as a child and seeing it covered so well fills me with joy!
Edited to correct spelling and pronouns.
Just so you know, Kaz uses they/them pronouns! ^^ But yes, I agree! This was an excellent video and an excellent outfit!
@@Nonnavlis thank you!
I had the same reaction. Haven't even watched the video and had to write a book gushing about Kaz.
i’m surprised i never saw any of these photos, because i was absolutely obsessed with fairies when i was little. i was particularly into building little fairy houses and cicely mary barker’s flower fairy illustrations.
I loved the flower fairies! My favourite was the dandelion fairy :)
When I was around 8, I convinced some younger girls that there were fairies living in the courtyard of a nearby apartment complex. I wrote tiny notes and hid them under rocks. When the girls found them, I said they were messages from fairies. At first, they didn't believe me, but, one time, I wrote a note that said something magical would happen that day at exactly 6 o'clock. Being 8, I didn't think ahead and plan for what the "something magical" might be, so around 5:30, I was panicking, desperately trying to come up with a "trick" they would believe. At 5:59, it was getting dark, and I was just about to give up, tell them the truth, and go home, when, suddenly, right at 6 pm, all the lights in the city came on! This happened every night, but, for some reason - maybe because it had rained recently and/or something to do with the time of year - it was very noticeable and, for a few minutes, it looked like everything was shining and gold. I couldn't have come up with a better trick! The girls were amazed, and, after that, they believed the fairies were real. Two of the girls, who were sisters, moved away less than a year later, and then my family moved the next year, but they didn't stop believing during the time I knew them. I wonder if they remember it today. That was a long time ago.
Funny how Doyle, who created a character seen as the epitome of investigative genius, was duped by a couple kids
A couple of nightly talented kids who understood the technology of the time! And knew the methods of how to make it look like they did not fake it! Incredibly impressive!
In the first Sherlockholmes story (it is multiple shortstory), Sherlock got some what fooled by a woman. After that he never made fun of womans smartness.
Hey I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your channel. I'm a white, Midwestern dude that was raised christian on a farm/ranch. You have a perspective that once upon a time I would've judged negatively (sorry, I was a cunt) I've grown quite a lot, and I've really enjoyed your videos about queer history. It's obviously not something I learned about in my small town school or Christian household, and I'm thankful to know more about the side of history I was prevented from learning. It's been incredibly eye opening for me.
Anyways, this is way too long, hope you're doing well, take care and thanks for the videos.
That’s such a heartwarming comment :)
Glad you were able to mature, my dude :)
This is so awesome 😊. One of the good things about the internet is getting to learn about things we never knew about. I grew up in a pretty opposite situation as you, we are Christian, but just very open, but I’m still constantly learning things!
Christ taught acceptance.
its really nice that you are actually willing to learn and change. it means a lot for all us queer people
I clicked on this right away and now I’m realizing once I finish this there’s no more Kaz content till the next 😭. Your channel is like a show I want to drag out because I know once I watch the finale I have to wait again.
Thank you for the fantastically entertaining and insightful educational videos. And this comment does not come with any pressure, I’d rather have your quality and thoughtfulness than a video everyday. You so quickly went to the top of my list for favorite channels once I discovered your channel and watched all your videos. THANK YOU!
May be a long wait, but the quality of the videos makes it more than worth it!
@@joseybryant7577 Totally agree 😊
This is one of the few channels that I know no matter what the topic is, the video is gonna be a banger.
two uploads a month is very frequent
@@talia9895 She does a great job, if you read my whole comment I’m complimenting not complaining.
I thoroughly enjoy the juxtaposition of intelligent, informed discourse with pointy ears and iridescent wings.
You've absolutely outdone yourself with the set, costuming and lighting in this one!
I was obsessed with fairies as a child, I built them houses and left them offerings in my garden, wrote them letters that my mother replied to in the tiniest hand writing. I really appreciate that it was encouraged. My grandfather was a magician and according to my grandmother, adults when offered illusions for entertainment at parties were often very hostile, angry at the mere idea that you would try and deceive them because they knew it was a trick but just didn't know how it was done. He ended up switching to exclusively entertaining children as a magician and made a decent career of it. My favourite trick of his was always one where goblins stole gold from the fairies house and the mischief between the two. Sceptical, heckling children got to meet a teeny tiny guillotine to stick their finger in if they were really brave enough that it was all just a trick. Lol
Thank you for talking about these photos. These pictures and they're story, are ingrained into mind since my childhood. I was obsessed with the Fae as a little kid and I still love their lore now.
Also your costume is beautiful, Kaz. You are an actual far creature.
I love how Kaz pairs these deeply researched video essays with appropriately matching glamorous outfits
Also my fav fairy story was Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg. I was super into the Disney Fairies series and also Gail Carson Levine
As a child I was thoroughly convinced that we had fairies in our garden although I never saw them myself. I wrote them tiny letters, laid out fruit and even sewed tiny petal dresses for them.
Strangely enough, they only wrote back when my half sister, who is 7 years older than me, came home for the weekend ^^
I just want to say, your videos have brought me an immense amount of comfort and enjoyment since I first found your channel about a year ago. Thank you for the effort you put in to them. Keep up the amazing work
You may’ve heard the expression “Like counting the angels on the head of a pin!” used to ridicule some intricate and time-consuming task which ultimately leads nowhere … well, it springs from a bizarre debate which, in Victorian times, gained widespread popularity! Scientists teamed up with theologians to calculate the size of, uh, _angels,_ (?!?) generating newspaper headlines, as well as heated debates across salons, smoking rooms, and dining room tables. Might make an interesting episode?
Which is to say, this episode is great! Thanks for having uploaded it. Your whole channel is fantastic!
Ooh that sounds fun! Do you know if this is where the “How many angels/demons can dance on the head of a pin?” thing in Good Omens came from?
@@theokaygatsby228 Considering who the authors of Good Omens were, I'd say it's obvious. Yes, that segment was a reference to this debate.
Do you have any sources for this? I always heard that this was a Victorian phrase made up specifically to ridicule medieval people as overly superstitious and foolish.
@@hedgehog3180 - Sure! To be clear, and as I wrote in my original comment, the *phrase* “like counting angels on the head of a pin” *is* used to ridicule intricate and time-consuming tasks which lead nowhere, but the *debate* from which that phrase sprang was very, very *real!*
In broad terms, it’s called the "angelic place" or "angelic extension" debate, and it was originated by and conducted most visibly between Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham during the medieval era. Sources for this include Thomas Aquinas' _Summa Theologiae,_ in questions 50-64 of the Prima Pars, John Duns Scotus' _Ordinatio,_ in distinction 3, questions 1-3, and William of Ockham's _Summa Logicae,_ book 2, chapters 14-16.
(In summary: Aquinas believed one could count the number of angels in a given location, the other two did not. Whether Aquinas used the specific example of “angels dancing on the head of a pin” is debated: the phrase first appears in writing in William Birchley’s _The Life of William Chillingworth_ in 1680, a full 400 years after the debate began, but Birchley may have been drawing on oral tradition, and the phrase may have originated with Aquinas.)
So anywho, in the Victorian era spiritualism and science both grip the U.K.’s imagination equally, and within the circles of drawing room intelligentsia it does not seem outlandish to think science may complement spiritualism, i.e. by allowing us to photograph faerie folk, send telegrams to the dead, and so on.
Into this climate of febrile imaginations, in 1869 Henry Parry Liddon - an Anglican theologian and a Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral - delivers a wildly popular series of lectures titled _Some Elements of Religion_ (later published as a book), and in his fifth lecture he revives in the public imagination the debate on “angelic extension” by discussing the nature of angels and their relation to space, and whether angels could occupy the same space without displacement.
And the more luminaries like Doyle, Yeats, and Blavatsky became preoccupied with empirically proving their spiritualist beliefs, so all the more did the phrase “like counting how many angels dance on the head of a pin” regain currency for satirizing such preoccupations - wildly baroque preoccupations generally, but also those preoccupations concerning the volume of angels specifically … now 600 years after that debate seemingly first originated
I hope that helps?
Fairies were one of my first special interests that I remember! I was OBSESSED with all things fairy, from tinker bell to collecting like a hundred of fairy figurines! Another dazzling video so visually stunning and funny like a true fae! 🧚♂️✨💕
I was so obsessed with fairies as a kid and even through my teen years, and I've recently begun a journey to recapture some of that magic, so this video dropped at a perfect time. Also this set is how I want my house to look all the time 10/10
I feel so happy watching this! These are stories from my hometown, I heard the stories from my grandad who grew up in Cottingley, they’re such an integral part of our folklore!! It’s lovely hearing someone overseas talk about it :) thank you for doing it justice!
My Nan got me the most beautiful illustrated fairy book before she died and I cherish it so much. Been obsessed with fairies for ages - me and my friends used to pretend we were the rainbow fairies from the books! I’ve studied the photos when I was doing art, love the whole spiritualist movement. I wld have happily gone along with it if I was alive then haha
I think I had the same book in my own childhood! I dont remember much but wasn't there something about baby fairies either growing wings or finding their wings? I remember the rainbow fairies :)
Was it one of the Cicely Mary Barker ones? I love those 😊
What book is it??
Even if the Cottingley fairies photo is a hoax, I still always believe in the existence of fairies no matter what. Here are some supposedly true stories about fairies:
In 1940, two sisters looked out of their bedroom window and saw a white-bearded little man in a red, pointed hat, driving a tiny car in circles around their lawn. Also recorded is the fairy aircraft seen by some children in Hertford. A miniature biplane, with a wingspan of about a foot, swooped over their garden fence. It landed briefly, almost hitting a dustbin, and then took off again, its leather-helmeted pilot waving a cheerful goodbye as he flew off.
A correspondent to The Ley Hunter magazine in 1973, out walking near Alderwasley, in Derbyshire, went to doze in the sunshine on small, grassy mound. He woke to find a strange, little man beside him, "a dumpy little chap" whose clothes were all "the same colour as the grass". They spoke, or rather "exchanged thoughts" and the writer learned that the little man had the important job of "breaking down decaying materials into food for plants".
Tryggvi Emilsson, a founder of Iceland's Communist Party, was fond of relating an incident that happened to him at the age of fourteen. He became stuck in a mountain crevice while rescuing one of the family's lambs. Reconciled to spending an uncomfortable night, he was surprised when he found a young girl looking at him. She said she came from a farm nearby, pointing to it. Now the boy was even more astonished, as he had walked these mountains all his life and had never known of another farm in the area. The girl laughed, saying: "You wouldn't have. We come from a world parallel to yours." At that moment, the girl said her father was calling her back and she ran off. Writing in Fortean Times 201, Claire Smith said that Emilsson continued to vist those hills for the rest of his life, "..... until his death in 1986, but never saw the girl or the farm again".
Please tell us the name of the book! :D
I can't imagine blaming two imaginative young girls for the fact that they were surrounded by self-deluded, foolish adults.
I'm weirdly charmed by the description of the matter-of-fact workman fairy. Like, instead of a delicate pirouetting creature, he's just going around with a toolbelt and a little beard and moth wings, making sure the roofs don't leak.
I am a simple woman. I see Kaz Rowe upload a new history video and I will drop everything (including office work) to watch it.
When I was a teenager I had a minor obsession with researching various folklore and mythologies from Britain, Ireland, Scotland, and the surrounding islands. It started an appreciation of faeries and their more brutal and mischievous past. I stumbled across this story during that time, but to me it was just a footnote during wider searches for knowledge. I never knew there was a continuation in 1965 and later in the 1970s.
That said, I think a good topic for a video would be a look on changing views of the fae from the 1300s to the 1800s, mixing of mythologies from the German, French, British, and Irish ideas of fae, the deconstruction of myths like Black Anais, and how that created a backlash to Victorian-era intellectualism and birthed the Art Nouveau movement that supplanted Beaux Arts starting around 1895. It'd fit in nicely with the lineup of videos you've had going on recently.
Kaz always comes through with the hella iconic themed costumes for every video, and I love them for that
when i was a kid i used to leave a jar outside every night with a dandelion pillow, a few leaf blankets and little things like an acorn or a crab apple. i would check on the jars every morning and take the movement of anything inside the jar as definitive proof that faeries were real and had been taking a nap inside of the jar overnight
that’s so sweet :(
KAZZ!!! That opening “do you believe in fairies” looking like that, sitting in a set like that! I’m OBSESSED! 13 seconds in and I am just in love with this content ✨💕🧚
"They got married" my brain, immediately: "TO EACH OTHER???"
You never fail to deliver a high quality documentary, Kaz. A good and obscure story treated to great research and an empathetic reading, delivered in these beautiful visuals (this video in particular looks STUNNING). You really make something special with each one of these.
Pokemon's fairy types canonically killing dragons usually 4x larger than they are, being accurate and deliberate hunters, and some even attacking children, while usually being rounded shapes and soft colors with very few taking human shape is probably the only remaining pop culture representation for classic Faerie stories in their original form and im all for it.
One of my favorite things about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was that it emphasized that fairies are usually wicked and *not your friends* in traditional lore.
But I do like the friendlier fairies of the 20th century as well. I had one of those “pull the string and they fly off” kind of fairies in the 90s. My parents sold it at a garage sale and I didn’t know until I saw someone leaving with it 😭
Maybe a Skydancer? I think that’s what those were called?
the fact that Doyle was like "ha-ha! i know you're secretly magic, you can't fool me!" will never not be hilarious to me
Fairies were one of my first hyperfixations as a neurodivergent kid! This was such an interesting watch, thank you for all the effort you put into the video
Your videos are consistently well-researched and high quality. You deserve far more attention than you’re currently getting, so here’s my contribution to the all-important algorithm. Thank you for creating what you do.
This set and costume goes so completely hard. The lighting is just BEAUTIFUL and i can’t stop staring at how it glistens on the iridescent wings!!!! Wow !!!!!!!
You deserve a billion subscribers. All of your videos are so incredibly well done, and not just the content and historical accuracy. The sets you make, your period clothing, and your perfect easy to understand enunciation are phenomenal. Never stop doing this!
I loved "Fairy Tale a true story" as a kid. I spent endless hours building fairy houses in my yard and 8-year-old me would be horrified that I no longer believe in them. Though I still love the magic of the stories around them. I love the history of the folklore and saying how that changed with industrial revolution. This video is awesome and speaks to me on many levels!
You know what. I envy 90's kids who watched this more nicer versions of faeries. I was introduce to the idea of The Fae with The Spiderwick Chronicles (and my flamly is half celtic, so they knew what they were doing).
And if you haven't scene it, Spiderwick Chronicles pretty much shows fairies as the original stories presented them: Monstrous, ugly, mischeveous and alien. It creeped me the fuck out.
@@dylantennant6594 I also grew up reading the spider went chronicle books. I know I saw the movie, but I don't remember it very well. I really enjoy all of those for trails of fairies. Both this sweet flower variety and the more traditional less nice ones.
@@dylantennant6594 I loved Spiderwick as a child mainly because it presented all of these creatures in the same way as an encyclopedia would present real creatures. Plus I loved the whole thing about fighting them using a mix of magical folklore and logic. I also for that reason loved Artemis Fowl, because it had the element of beating magical creatures with smarts, modern technology and ancient folklore.
I don't think belief in them is dead so much as it has become solely "stories for children" and even the children might not believe them but just play along because it's fun. My parents did some stuff with them around Christmas since in Denmark the main belief is in gnomes/elves and they supposedly live in every house but you have to give them gifts to make them happy. I don't think I ever really believed in it but I went along with it for fun and because it was an opportunity to play some pranks on my parents.
I remember being so transfixed by those photos; I think there was a little book series in the late 90s about this (as well as a gorgeously illustrated 'pressed fairy' book around the same time).
Also, you look amazing! love the glitter and atmospheric lighting/set decor.
You were serving Bernard from the Santa clause movie so hard in this vid, I couldn’t help it. Lovely vid! I always look forward to these. 💕☺️
your voice is so calming (I put this on and passed out before the sponsor bit even came on, it was literally amazing)
Thank you!
I just love that Houdini was so dedicated to exposing charlatans and it makes me happy every time I hear stories about it.
I did a photography project in college based on the Cottingley Fairies images! I used double exposure and it was sooo difficult but satisfying. Something about using old film cameras gives it a magical feel. You look amazing by the way 🧚🏽♀️
The weird thing is that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- the creator of the ultimate symbol of logic and investigation, Mr Sherlock Holmes -- firmly believed the fairies were real to the end of his life.
let the man have his fun
honestly despite it being a hoax, the fact that children pulled this off, years before even the *idea* of Photoshop is still such a slay ✨🧚🏽♀️
Love the visual ambience. You never waste my time in your vids. Highly professional. You do this alone?
"harry houdini beating the haunted by mommy allegations" made my day lmaO thank u
i too was obsessed with fairies as a kid and made fairy houses aplenty! i remember reading about this story and being fascinated by it. great video as always!!
When I was a kid I read about changelings in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide and was like "this explains everything."
The way I immediately clicked this video. (Especially after I bought The Cottingly Secret, without realizing it was a romance novel 🤦🏻♀️)
I can’t remember a time fairies didn’t have me in a chokehold. I carried a collection of Grimm’s fairy tales with me for a while in elementary school, hit peak obsession when I found the Spiderwick Chronicles. Winx, Tinkerbell, the color fairy books, and now, cultural folklore research.
there was a fairyology book at my local library i was obsessed with as a kid, and it had these pictures in it. i knew the pictures themselves were fake, but i still made tiny houses in the woods near my house and left out fruits and sugar water for the fairies. very fond memories :,)
I know this isn’t the point of the video but you look amazing! Thank you for all the work you put into your videos! Both the research and the aesthetics! It’s really appreciated! 💖
KAZ! your background and costumes keep getting better and better i love it
There was a book called “Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy book” released in early 90s. I was in college at the time and my friends and I were highly amused by it. It was a parody based on this story, but I never really knew much about the true story until now. You still couldn’t just Google things then, and I didn’t really have time to research it. I hadn’t thought about it in years. I wonder if anyone else in the comments is familiar with that book? Thanks for this great video.
Just dropping in to say yes, it was written by Terry Jones and Brian Froud, who worked on Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. Amazing book. Some of the fairy illustrations are, how to put it, NSFW!
@@mallen4890 thanks for the info. And yes, I remember a few being NSFW, though that wasn’t a phrase back then. 😄
Watching your videos is like entering a little storybook idk how to explain it but your storytelling and setmaking is great and i want to thank you
I lived very close to cottingley growing up and was an avid believer in fairies. When I was around 10, my friend and I explored around cottingley and found the beck where the famous picture was taken. It was covered in litter and the water was polluted 😢💔
I listen to your videos while I draw and honestly thank you for the company. Also I love your content a lot, it's super interesting and I love how you narrate!
Your research and your costuming are impeccable as always.
Shocking to learn that a man who is famous for writing stories about fictional things would be enthralled by stories of fictional things
I’ve always absolutely loved fairies, especially since my name (Avery) means Ruler of the Elves. As I child I was always given toys and room decor themed around elves and fairies, so fairies have always been a part of my life. Both the lighter and darker sides of fairy folklore are so fascinating.
Barely started the much anticipated video and cannot get over the soft dreamlike fairyland you have conjured. The clothes, the makeup, the iridescent wings? Breathtaking. Not on;y to give intriguing and cogent lectures but you do so while honoring the themes and aesthetics visually?? Insane.
Thank goodness for you and our very similar mini-obsessions! Why, yes, I was a faerie child… err, that is, I was captivated by faeries as a child (still am, who am I kidding) and also was quite obsessed with the movie Fairytale in the ‘90s (in which I may have developed a sliiiiight crush on Harvey Keitel as Houdini). I was repeatedly reprimanded for doodling all kinds of faeries in the margins of my church service pamphlets (before I boycotted church entirely at age 11 and went on to live a degenerate, queer, pagan life), was frequently to be seen frolicking about my countryside home barefoot and in search of faerie groves, begged my mother for help in constructing tiny dwellings and paraphernalia for them out of acorns, sticks, and glue, and was an avid collector of “faerie associated things” like illustrations of fae made into stickers by humans and tiny nests found in the forest (no doubt belonging to some minuscule bird or other) and leaves that were just a tad too small 😆 I also believed in Borrowers, but that’s a different topic. In short, all of this was right up my alley.
Bit of trivia on the endless fuckwittery of Ol’ Doyle (bless you for reporting on his antics, keep spreading the word) and his friendship with Harry H: there’s an interesting dramatisation of it called “Impossible” by The Spontaneity Shop that played the Edinburgh fringe fest a few years back and I believe it’s available to watch on Vimeo, if you’re interested. To this day it is still difficult to reconcile the fact that the creator of one of the most dazzlingly analytical minds in all of fiction was himself a determinedly self-delusional dunce whose buffoonery is still creating little ripples in society… smdh. Love the research, imagination, and passion you put into your videos! Absolutely gorgeous. Oh and also this costume deserves another outing at some point 👌🏻😊🏳️🌈💖🧚✨
The kids showed a lot of maturity by indulging someone in a fantasy that was distracting him from some horrible truths
Pixie Hollow Fairies and those old Flower Fairy books had me by the throat as a child. I loved fairies so much I just knew they had to be real. It makes me so happy to think back about it
lol same they were my hyperfixation as a kid
Bro, Gardener was basically Mr. Crocker from Fairly Odd Parents
Thank you for taking on this case, you dig deeper than others.
I clicked on this video, excited to see your costume, makeup and set...but stayed for the story! Thank you for your wonderful videos! I appreciate all your research and design work...as well as your awesome personality!
Wake up, babe. New Kaz video dropped.
AHH I'm so happy you mentioned Fairy Tale!! I had this movie on VHS as a kid and LOVED IT! I actually completely forgot about it until I saw this video!!
This reminds me of the story the BBC put out where they fooled people into thinking spaghetti trees were a thing in the 1950s.
i think this might be my new favourite video of yours!! love the way you present these stories and your outfit is absolutely incredible!!!!
my grandmother used to tell me stories how fairies would lure little kids into the woods then they would eat them like a bunch of phirianas
now THESE are video essays !! you’re such a good writer !! and it’s done in a way that’s formatted perfectly for video ! love your videos !
This video is simply beautiful 💗 I usually listen as a podcast type of video, but you have 100% of my attention! Xx
KAZ THAT BACKGROUND IS BEAUTIFUL
Ooh I’m excited about this! Kaz you come up with such a fascinating variety of topics! I read a novel based on this story, and of course in comes up in almost any discussion of Arthur Conan Doyle. Belief in (and some fear of) “the fae” is still holding on in some places. But I feel like even believers should’ve been suspicious of those pictures; the fairies look so flat, and the girls look barely interested in the supposedly real fairies they’re “playing” with. Then again they fell for a lot of spiritualist chicanery, too.
the fairies look obviously fake to us, because we've seen thousands of pictures and even more video, and we know much more about lighting and 3-d shapes being represented in 2-d form than people did back then. even if we don't know consciously what's wrong, we still know that what we're seeing really isn't up to video game standards.
@@perfectallycromulent Photography had been around over 60 years by then. Some people didn’t buy it, but others were desperate to. I submit it’s much just like some people believing in obviously fake things today.
@@MegCazalet computers had been around for 60 years by the 1990s, most people knew nothing about them. photography was still a relatively expensive technology then, and most people saw crappy quality images in news papers and on film reels that had been played tons of times. sure, some wanted to believe, but plenty of people then couldn't tell those pictures weren't real.
The looks on the girls faces wouldn't have been odd since exposure times were fairly long for cameras back then so you needed to have a facial expression you could hold still for at least a few seconds. That however does beg another question of if the faries were supposedly mid movement then how did they show up so clearly on the photo?
Houdini: dude ghosts and faeries aren't real
Doyle: ur mom
I'd love to see a video about the author Lord Dunsany. If you aren’t familiar, he was an early fantasy writer who influenced Tolkein, Lovecraft, and many others.
Yes! I‘d like to see that too!
"because there are no fairies, they must be fake-"
*Bug attacks*