Translation

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 445.

He was a man appointed to secular life, up to the time that he was of advanced age, and he never learned any poetry. For that reason, often at the feast, when there was deemed to be cause for merriment — so that they all in succession should sing to the harp — when he saw the harp draw near to him, he arose from the feast out of shame and went home to his abode. Then one time he did this, so that he left the house of the feast and was going out to the cattle shed (their care was entrusted to him for the night). When at a suitable time he arranged his arms and legs on a resting place there, and fell asleep, a man stood by him in a dream and hailed and greeted him and called him by name:

"Caedmon, sing something for me."

Then answered he and said, "I can not sing, and because of this I went out from the feast and went here because I could (sing) naught."

Again he said (he who was speaking with him): "But you can sing to me."

Said he, "What shall I sing?"

He said, "Sing to me about the creation."

When he received this answer, he then began immediately to sing, in praise of God the Creator, those verses and those words which he had never ever heard; the arrangement of them is this: