Oslo - A reward was offered Monday after hundreds of gingerbread houses were destroyed over the weekend in the Norwegian west coast city of Bergen. Local businesses offered 100,000 kroner (17,700 dollars) for information about the assailants. A police investigation was underway.
Bergen has, since 1991, held a regular exhibit of gingerbread houses, forming what is touted as the world's largest gingerbread city as part of the run-up to the holiday season. A local newspaper pledges a donation for each gingerbread house to the Save the Children charity.
Inhabitants of Bergen responded to the vandalism by baking new gingerbread houses. Some 100 were delivered Sunday afternoon. The opening has been postponed until next week.
But there have also been angry comments posted on local media sites and the social networking site Facebook with calls for the assailants to be placed in a medieval-style stocks.
Church of Norway bishop Halvor Nordhaug called for reconciliation.
"We should not lynch anyone over some gingerbread houses," the bishop told the BT newspaper.
Security around the pavilion where the gingerbread houses were to be displayed has been stepped up.
