English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Mōdraniht or English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Modranicht (in English, Old (ca.450-1100); pronounced as /ˈmoːdrɑniçt/; Old English for "Night of the Mothers" or "Mothers' Night") was an event held at what is now Christmas Eve by Anglo-Saxon pagans. The event is solely attested by the medieval English historian Bede in his eighth-century Latin work Latin: [[De temporum ratione]]. It has been suggested that sacrifices may have occurred during this event. Scholars have proposed connections between the Anglo-Saxon English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Mōdraniht and events attested among other Germanic peoples (specifically those involving the Norse, Old: [[dís]]ir, collective female ancestral beings, and Yule), and the Germanic Latin: [[Matres and Matronae]], female beings attested by way of altar and votive inscriptions, nearly always appearing in trios.
In Latin: De temporum ratione, Bede writes that the pagan Anglo-Saxons:
Scholars have linked these English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Modra ("Mothers") with the Germanic Latin: [[Matres and Matronae]].[1] Rudolf Simek says that English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Mōdraniht "as a Germanic sacrificial festival should be associated with the Matron cult of the West Germanic peoples on the one hand, and to the Norse, Old: [[dísablót]] and the Swedish: [[Disting]] already known from medieval Scandinavia on the other hand and is chronologically to be seen as a connecting link between these Germanic forms of cult."[2]
Simek provides additional discussion about the connection between English, Old (ca.450-1100);: Mōdraniht, the Norse, Old: dísir, and the norns.[3] Scholars have placed the event as a part of the Germanic winter period of Yule.[4]
Regarding Bede's attestation, Philip A. Shaw commented in 2011 that "the fact that Bede's English, Old (ca.450-1100);: modranect can be to some extent confirmed by the Romano-Germanic votive inscriptions to matrons does at least indicate that we should not be too quick to dismiss the other evidence he provides for Anglo-Saxon deities".[5]