A BBC Natural World programme is to investigate the relationship between the standing stones of Callanish (Outer Hebrides, Scotland) and the moon. Coinciding with this weekend's full moon and total eclipse of the moon, the programme seeks to explore the importance of the moon in the stones' construction.
    Callanish comprises of a central circle with four "limbs" marking the four points of the compass. Many of the stones are believed to be aligned with the sun and moon at various times of year, and may have been used to predict events significant to the farmers who built it.
    The programme, entitled Moon Power, will simulate an event that only happens at Callanish every 18 and a half years, the next in 2006. A figure known variously as the "Earth Mother," "Sleeping Beauty," or in Gaelic "Cailleach na Mointeach" (Old Woman of the Moors), appears in the outline of the hills to the south. The moon rises over the "Earth Mother", then two to five hours later passes through the stones, and if someone stands at the higher south end of the circle, when the moon is reborn, it contains the silhouette of a figure.
    Moon Power will be shown on BBC2 at 5:25pm on Sunday 9 November.

Source: The Scotsman (3 November 2003)