C dmon

Cædmon is one of only two Anglo-Saxon poets whose names are known (the other being Cynewulf). According to Bede, writing in the 7th century, Cædmon was a cow-herd at a Yorkshire monastery, who was unable to sing in public until he miraculously found himself able to sing the Creation, a poem of nine lines. Saint Hilda, the abbess of Whitby Abbey, encouraged his new calling and asked him to join the monastery. The poem appears in the margins of some copies of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, and is the oldest surviving text in English. Although many verses have been attributed to Cædmon, the original nine lines of alliterative Old English poetry are the only verses which can reliably be ascribed to him.

See also: alliterative verse

Cædmon's hymn of creation


Nu scylun hergan   hefaenricaes uard Now we should praise   the heaven-kingdom's guardian,
metudæs maecti   end his modgidanc the measurer's might   and his mind-conception,
uerc uuldurfadur   sue he uundra gihuaes   work of the glorious father,   as he each wonder,
eci dryctin   or astelidæ eternal Lord,   instilled at the origin.
he aerist scop   aelda barnum He first created   for men's sons
heben til hrofe   haleg scepen heaven as a roof,   holy creator;
tha middungeard   moncynnæs uard then, middle-earth,   mankind's guardian,
eci dryctin   æfter tiadæ eternal Lord,   afterward made
firum foldu   frea allmectig the earth for men,   father almighty.


The text of the poem, as it appears here, was transcribed from a facsimile of the Moore manuscript of Bede.


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