Cædmon drowsily answered: "I cannot sing anything. Therefore went I away from the mirth and came here, for I know not how to sing."
Again the mysterious stranger spoke. "Yet you could sing."
And Finan heard the sleep-bound voice of Cædmon ask, "What shall I sing?"
"Sing to me," said the stranger, "the beginning of all things."
And at once Cædmon began to sing in a strong voice, and very beautifully, the praise of God who made this world. And his song had all the beat of sea waves in it—sometimes little waves that lapped gently on the shore and bore in beautiful shells and jeweled seaweed. But more often its rhythm was as mighty as ocean waves that tossed big ships.
Then the wandering stranger, hearing the beauty of the song, vanished. Cædmon awoke from his sleep, and he remembered all that he had sung and the vision that had come to him. And he was glad. He arose and went to the Abbess Hild to tell her what had happened to him, the least of her servants.
In the presence of many wise men did Hild bid Cædmon tell his dream and sing his verses. And he did as he was told, and it was plain to all that an angel had visited Cædmon. The Abbess Hild took him into the monastery, and she ordered that everything be done for him. And Cædmon became the first and one of the greatest of English poets. And even as Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, English poetry was born in a cattle-fold in a town which was called Streoneshalh, which means "Bay of the Beacon." And to mankind since Cædmon, the first English poet, English song has been a beacon to all the world.
If you open a book written in the English of to-day, it is easy to read it—just as easy as to understand the speech we use among one another. But the English of fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago would be difficult to read. There is an illustration of this English in a line from "Deor's Lament":
Thas ofer eode, thisses swa maeg.