[9] = ðǣr.
[ IV. THE STORY OF CÆDMON.]
[From the so-called Alfredian version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. The text generally followed is that of MS. Bodley, Tanner 10. Miller (Early English Text Society, No. 95, Introd.) argues, chiefly from the use of the prepositions, that the original O.E. MS. was Mercian, composed possibly in Lichfield (Staffordshire). At any rate, O.E. idiom is frequently sacrificed to the Latin original.
“Cædmon, as he is called, is the first Englishman whose name we know who wrote poetry in our island of England; and the first to embody in verse the new passions and ideas which Christianity had brought into England.... Undisturbed by any previous making of lighter poetry, he came fresh to the work of Christianising English song. It was a great step to make. He built the chariot in which all the new religious emotions of England could now drive along.” (Brooke, The History of Early English Literature, cap. XV.) There is no reason to doubt the historical existence of Cædmon; for Bede, who relates the story, lived near Whitby, and was seven years old when Cædmon died (A.D. 680)].
[1] In [ðysse abbudissan] mynstre wæs sum brōðor syndriglīce
2 mid godcundre gife gemǣred ǫnd geweorðad, for þon
3 he gewunade gerisenlīce lēoð wyrcan, þā ðe tō ǣfęstnisse[1]
4 ǫnd tō ārfæstnisse belumpon; swā ðætte swā hwæt swā
5 hē of godcundum stafum þurh bōceras geleornode, þæt hē
6 æfter medmiclum fæce in scopgereorde mid þā mǣstan