Mōdraniht orModranicht (pronounced[ˈmoːdrɑniçt];Old English for "Night of the Mothers" or "Mothers' Night") was an event held on or around the northern hemisphere's longest night of the year (the winter or hibernal solstice), byAnglo-Saxon pagans. The event is solely attested by the medieval English historianBede in his eighth-century Latin workDe temporum ratione. It has been suggested that sacrifices may have occurred during this event. Scholars have proposed connections between the Anglo-SaxonMōdraniht and events attested among otherGermanic peoples (specifically those involving thedísir, collective female ancestral beings, andYule), and the GermanicMatres and Matronae, female beings attested by way ofaltar andvotive inscriptions, nearly always appearing in trios.
The Norse equivalent to Mōdraniht washǫkunátt [sv] (alternativelyhǫggunátt, inDanish:høgenat,Icelandic andNorwegian:hökunótt,Swedish:höknatt).[1] The meaning of the prefixhǫku-/hǫggu- is unknown.[2]
InDe temporum ratione, Bede writes that the pagan Anglo-Saxons:
Incipiebant autem annum ab octavo Calendarum Januariarum die, ubi nunc natale Domini celebramus. Et ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabuloModranicht, id est, matrum noctem appellabant: ob causam et suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.[3]
Scholars have linked theseModra ("Mothers") with the GermanicMatres and Matronae.[5]Rudolf Simek says thatMōdraniht "as a Germanic sacrificial festival should be associated with the Matron cult of theWest Germanic peoples on the one hand, and to thedísablót and theDisting 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."[6]
Simek provides additional discussion about the connection betweenMōdraniht, thedísir, and thenorns.[7] Scholars have placed the event as a part of the Germanic winter period ofYule.[8]
Regarding Bede's attestation, Philip A. Shaw commented in 2011 that "the fact that Bede'smodranect can be to some extent confirmed by theRomano-Germanic votive inscriptions to matrons does at least indicate that we should not be too quick to dismiss the other evidence he provides forAnglo-Saxon deities".[9]
I Norden, där mörker och köld överväga, är det ju också naturligt att räkna årets början från vinterns inbrott. Svearnas år begunte vid "Starbragdet", årets längsta natt, isländarnas "hökonatt", anglernas "modernatt".
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