MUCH blether about devil-worship, “political correctness gone mad” and the destructive effects of unchecked individualism greeted the announcement on July 16th of an official association for pagan policemen, to take its place alongside the existing Muslim Police Association and a recently created equivalent for Sikhs. But for Britain’s druids, wiccans and witches, it was another precious inch gained in a quiet struggle to get society to take them seriously.

No one is quite sure how many pagans there are. The most recent census, carried out in 2001, counts 31,000, but others take a broader view. Ronald Hutton, a professor of history at the University of Bristol, has studied membership lists of various druidical orders and witch covens and reckons the true figure may be somewhere between 120,000 and 200,000. That could place pagans between Buddhists and Jews, respectively the sixth- and fifth-largest religious groupings in Britain.

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