The event is solely attested by the medieval English historian Bede in his eighth-century Latin work De temporum ratione.
Scholars have proposed connections between the Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht and events attested among other Germanic peoples (specifically those involving the dísir, collective female ancestral beings, and Yule), and the Germanic Matres and Matronae, female beings attested by way of altar and votive inscriptions, nearly always appearing in trios.
Incipiebant autem annum ab octavo Calendarum Januariarum die, ubi nunc natale Domini celebramus.
Et ipsam noctem nunc nobis sacrosanctam, tunc gentili vocabulo Modranicht, id est, matrum noctem appellabant: ob causam et suspicamur ceremoniarum, quas in ea pervigiles agebant.
[6] Regarding Bede's attestation, Philip A. Shaw commented in 2011 that "the fact that Bede's 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".