Of fairies and farces...

Having pulled out my wisdom tooth, the dentist straightened up, beaming, his own crooked, white teeth gleaming in the afternoon sun. "Here you go!" he held out what was, till moments ago, a part of me- my tooth. "You might want to keep it... Maybe the Tooth Fairy will give you something for it!" he chuckled. I could only glare back in reply. The guy had caused me immense pain, and was now chortling. You don't do that when a fellow human being is in pain. And in any case, Tooth Fairies wouldn't want wisdom teeth.

The Tooth Fairy is, today, probably one of the most loved and most popular fairies. In the United States, Britain, Canada and Spain, she supposedly visits in the night and leaves money or little gifts in return for milk teeth placed under a child's pillow. Nobody seems to know when exactly tales of the Tooth Fairy began, but it was in the early 20th century that this little fairy started gaining popularity. However, the association of teeth with gifts dates back to over a thousand years ago, when Viking children were given a 'tooth fee' when their first tooth grew in. In the nineteenth century, European children often placed their teeth in mouse holes, under kitchen shelves and other such places where their 'Tooth Mouse' might find them. These Mice not only left behing coins and candies, but also made the child's new tooth as sharp as a mouse's!

The word 'fairy' itself comes from the Latin word, fata, which refers to the three mythical women (Fates) who spin the threads of life, controlling all our destinies. Fairies often participated in the lives of mortals... Sometimes helping humans out of sticky situations, and sometimes doling out huge servings of misery. So much so that during the Middle Ages, fairies were blamed for more or less everything that went wrong- from bruises to paralysis to missing babies. By the 16th century, the fear of witches grew to be more prominent, and fairies began to be seen as benevolent and fun-loving creatures. But they still engaged in their share of mischief- upturning trash cans, smashing dishes, and so on.

In July 1918, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffith from Cottingley, England, produced the world's first photograph of actual fairies. The picture showed Frances sitting in a forest with several tiny, winged fairies around her. Though Elsie's father suggested that they had staged it all, the girls swore they'd seen the fairies in the woods, and not just that once.

Elsie's father didn't believe the photos, but her mother mentioned them to her friends, who were rather inclined towards the supernatural. The story spread quickly, catching the attention of many, including that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle and equally interested others consulted several experts to determine if the photographs had been faked. Except that the fairies' hairstyles looked a bit too modern, no evidence of fraud could be found. In 1919, Doyle published an article in the magazine Strand- 'Fairies Photographed- An Epoch Making Event'. While the article fueled much excitement, leading to a heated debate between the believers and the skeptics, the girls surprised the world by coming up with three similar photographs in 1920.

The debate as to whether the photographs were 'real' raged on for several decades. Finally, in the early 1980s, Elsie and Frances both admitted that they had constructed the fairies out of paper and had used hatpins to secure them to tree branches. They said they themselves had been shocked that so many individuals had believed their story. As she said, the pins were visible in a few pictures- and nobody ever noticed!