WItchcraft will be invoked in a couple's bid to conceive a Millennium baby.

Susan and Eric Ray are to take part in a ritual at White Horse Hill, near Uffington. White witch Kevin Carlyon appealed for a volunteer couple to go through a ceremony on March 21, the date of the symbolic vernal equinox.

He will put a spell on the couple over an altar before sending them home to make love.

The couple, who live at Colwell Drive in Witney, have been through a battery of medical tests without success.

Susan, 33, said: "It just has not happened for us so far but we're confident."

Susan and Eric, 32, who have been married for eight years, contacted Sussex-based Kevin after his appeal for volunteers in the Oxford Mail.

He has performed similar ceremonies at other ancient sites, including the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset, where couples have made love after dark to increase their chances of fertility. Kevin said: "Most of these ancient sites are on ley lines and have fertility cults associated with them. I will be in my full robes with an altar, candles and incense, and summoning the forces of nature.

"I will be energising a crystal, which will change the molecular structure inside their bodies. I will then ask them to go home and make love."

Kevin has been practising white witchcraft for many years. Last year he visited Hillgrove Farm, near Minster Lovell, to "cleanse the bad forces" around farmer Chris Brown's cat-breeding unit.

He added: "Eric and Susan have had all the hospital tests and there's absolutely no reason why they should not conceive."

Story date: Thursday 11 March

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