Bede makes the statement that the heathen Anglo-Saxons gave to the eve of the Nativity the name of _Modranicht_ or ‘night of mothers,’ and in it practised certain ceremonies[936]. It is a difficult passage, but the most plausible of various explanations seems to be that which identifies these ceremonies with the cult of those _Matres_ or _Matronae_, corresponding with the Scandinavian _disar_, whom we seem justified in regarding as guardians and representatives of the dead. Nor is there any particular difficulty in guessing at the nature of the ceremonies referred to. Amongst all peoples the cult of the dead consists in feeding them; and there is a long catena of evidence for the persistent survival in the Germano-Keltic area of a Christmas and New Year custom closely parallel to the _alfablót_ and _disablót_ of the northern _jul_. When the household went to bed after the New Year revel, a portion of the banquet was left spread upon the table in the firm belief that during the night the ancestral spirits and their leaders would come and partake thereof. The practice, which was also known on the Mediterranean, does not escape the animadversion of the ecclesiastical prohibitions. The earlier writers who speak of it, Jerome, Caesarius, Eligius, Boniface, Zacharias, the author of the _Homilia de Sacrilegiis_, if they give any explanation at all, treat it as a kind of charm[937]. The laden table, like the human over-eating and over-drinking, is to prognosticate or cause a year of plentiful fare. The preachers were more anxious to eradicate heathenism than to study its antiquities. Burchardus, however, had a touch of the anthropologist, and Burchardus says definitely that food, drink, and three knives were laid on the Kalends table for the three _Parcae_, figures of Roman mythology with whom the western _Matres_ or ‘weird sisters’ were identified[938]. Mediaeval notices confirm the statement of Burchardus. Martin of Amberg[939], the _Thesaurus Pauperum_[940] and the Kloster Scheyern manuscript[941] make the recipient of the bounty Frau Perchte. In Alsso’s _Largum Sero_ it is for the heathen gods or demons[942]; in _Dives and Pauper_ for ‘Atholde or Gobelyn[943].’ In modern survivals it is still often Frau Perchte or the Perchten or Persteln for whom fragments of food are left; in other cases the custom has taken on a Christian colouring, and the ancestors’ bit becomes the portion of _le bon Dieu_ or the Virgin or Christ or the _Magi_, and is actually given to _quêteurs_ or the poor[944].