had followed a secular occupation until well advanced in years without ever learning anything about poetry. Indeed it sometimes happened at a feast that all the guests in turn would be invited to sing and entertain the company; then, when he saw the harp coming his way, he would get up from the table and go home.

On one such occasion he had left the house in which the entertainment was being held and went out to the stable where it was his duty that night to look after the beasts. There when the time came he settled down to sleep. Suddenly in a dream he saw a man standing beside him who called him by name. ‘Caedmon,’ he said, ‘sing me a song.’ ‘I don't know how to sing,’ he replied. ‘It is because I cannot sing that I left the feast and came here.’ The man who addressed him then said: ‘But you shall sing to me.’ ‘What should I sing about?’ he replied. ‘Sing about the Creation of all things,’ the other answered. And Caedmon immediately began to sing verses in praise of God the Creator that he had never heard before.

Early in the morning he went to his superior the reeve, and told him about this gift that he had received. The reeve took him before the abbess, who had ordered him to give an account of his dream and repeat the verses in the presence of many learned men, so that a decision might be reached by common consent as to their quality and origin. All of them agreed that Caedmon's gift had been given to him by our Lord (p. 249).