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Cædmon is one of only two Anglo-Saxon poets whose names are known (the other being Cynewulf). According to Bede, writing in the 8th 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 we know as "Cædmon's Hymn" was summarized by Bede in Latin in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The Anglo-Saxon version commonly read today is thus a reconstruction of Cædmon's own work, inserted by Anglo-Saxon translators of Bede's history, including the translation made sometime during the reign of Alfred the Great.
We have good reason to believe the reconstructed version is very close to Cædmon's own. We have 17 different manuscripts where scribes have inserted an Anglo-Saxon version, either in addition to or in place of Bede's summary. Apart from regional spelling variations, the only notable difference between the versions is some have "eorðan bearnum" ("for earth's children") in place of "ælda barnum". Both versions fit the alliterative and stress requirement of the line.
See also: alliterative verse
Cædmon's hymn of creation
| Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
| Now we should praise the heaven-kingdom's guardian,
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| metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
| the measurer's might and his mind-conception,
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| uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
| work of the glorious father, as he each wonder,
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| eci dryctin or astelidæ
| eternal Lord, instilled at the origin.
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| he aerist scop aelda barnum
| He first created for men's sons
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| heben til hrofe haleg scepen
| heaven as a roof, holy creator;
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| tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
| then, middle-earth, mankind's guardian,
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| eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
| eternal Lord, afterward made
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| firum foldu frea allmectig
| the earth for men, father almighty.
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The text of the poem, as it appears here, was transcribed from a facsimile of the Moore manuscript of Bede. It is the oldest surviving text in the English language.
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