Pagans are clubbing together to offer a reward for information leading to the apprehension of vandals who daubed yellow paint over a 4,500 year old stone circle, it emerged today.
The Rollright Stones, near Chipping Norton on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border, were splattered in an incident which was discovered on Thursday.
Now the Pagan Federation has stepped in, urging its members to pledge cash which they will pay up if a conviction is secured.
The organisation’s secretary, Karin Attwood, said she was optimistic the total would top £1,000.
She said: “The feeling of the Pagan community is that they are so outraged, they want to do something about it.
“We have had offers to help with the clear-up and pay for CCTV.
“But this seems to be the most efficient way of dealing with it.”
Ms Attwood, who is also a trustee of the Rollright Trust, said that the 100ft diameter circle of stones was more popular with pagans than even Stonehenge because of its connections with witchcraft.
Pagan myth has it that the circle came into existence when a witch spied an invading King and turned him into stone.
There are references in history books to witchcraft being practised there as late as the reign of James I and, more recently, it was the centre of the Wicca revival in the 1950s.
“In terms of a connection with our ancestors, it’s held in very high esteem,” she said.
“There have been marriages, birthing ceremonies, ash scatterings there – it’s similar to Canterbury Cathedral for us.”
There are estimated to be around 250,000 pagans in Britain.