Work of the world-warden, worker of all wonders, The majesty of his might and his mind’s wisdom, Praise we the fashioner now of Heaven’s fabric, One of the earliest pieces of Old English poetry to survive, it reads as follows when translated into modern English: Cædmon and his poetry survive, however, albeit in fragmentary form, thanks to Bede, who included within the account of his life ‘Cædmon’s Hymn’ – the alliterative praise poem that, supposedly, he learned to sing in his dream. Streaneshalch is thought to have been sacked and destroyed by Danish Vikings in the early 9th century. Of the Anglian monastery where Cædmon lived, very little is visible today, although recent excavation has revealed that the site was much more extensive than previously thought – with a large number of timber buildings on the headland (at least 500 metres of which has eroded into the sea since Anglo-Saxon times) and an extensive cemetery, which is now buried beneath the visitors’ car park. Thanks to this inspiration, which Abbess Hild pronounced divine, Cædmon was able to listen to a piece of scripture and turn it into verse. Cædmon protested that he was unable to do so, but then began to sing verses in praise of God the Creator ‘that he had never heard before’. In a dream that night, a man appeared to him asking him to sing about the creation of all things. One evening, Bede tells us, Cædmon had left a gathering as usual to tend to the monastery’s livestock before retiring to bed.

How, then, did this harp-dodging, middle-aged everyman become an accomplished Christian poet of great renown? He had no artistic leanings whatsoever, and after a feast he would rise from the table and leave whenever he saw ‘the harp coming his way’.

According to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in 731, Cædmon was a lowly layman, ‘well advanced in years’.

Four hundred years previously, the site had been the scene of an even more dramatic spiritual and artistic awakening – of Cædmon, the first named English poet.Ĭædmon lived at Streaneshalch in about 680, when it was ruled by the great Abbess Hild.

Bede's account of the poet caedmon