The Exodus is a fine poem, strangely unlike anything else in Old English literature. It is full of martial spirit, yet makes no use of the phrases of the heathen epic, which Cynewulf and other Christian poets were accustomed to borrow freely, often with little appropriateness. The condensation of the style and the peculiar vocabulary make the Exodus somewhat obscure in many places. It is probably of southern origin, and can hardly be supposed to be even an imitation of Cædmon.
The Daniel is often unjustly depreciated. It is not a great poem but the narration is lucid and interesting. The author has borrowed some 70 lines from the beginning of a poetical rendering of the Prayer of Azarias and the Song of the Three Children, of which there is a copy in the Exeter Book. The borrowed portion ends with verse 3 of the canticle, the remainder of which follows in a version for the most part independent, though containing here and there a line from Azarias. Except in inserting the prayer and the Benedicite, the paraphrast draws only from the canonical part of the book of Daniel. The poem is obviously the work of a scholar, though the Bible is the only source used.
The three other poems, designated as "Book II" in the Junius MS., are characterized by considerable imaginative power and vigour of expression, but they show an absence of literary culture and are somewhat rambling, full of repetitions and generally lacking in finish. They abound in passages of fervid religious exhortation. On the whole, both their merits and their defects are such as we should expect to find in the work of the poet celebrated by Bæda, and it seems possible, though hardly more than possible, that we have in these pieces a comparatively little altered specimen of Cædmon's compositions.
Of poems not included in the Junius MS., the Dream of the Rood (see Cynewulf) is the only one that has with any plausibility been ascribed to Cædmon. It was affirmed by Professor G. Stephens that the Ruthwell Cross, on which a portion of the poem is inscribed in runes, bore on its top-stone the name "Cadmon";[[3]] but, according to Professor W. Vietor, the traces of runes that are still visible exclude all possibility of this reading. The poem is certainly Northumbrian and earlier than the date of Cynewulf. It would be impossible to prove that Cædmon was not the author, though the production of such a work by the herdsman of Streanæshalch would certainly deserve to rank among the miracles of genius.
Certain similarities between passages in Paradise Lost and parts of the translation from Old Saxon interpolated in the Old English Genesis have given occasion to the suggestion that some scholar may have talked to Milton about the poetry published by Junius in 1655, and that the poet may thus have gained some hints which he used in his great work. The parallels, however, though very interesting, are only such as might be expected to occur between two poets of kindred genius working on what was essentially the same body of traditional material.
The name Cædmon (in the MSS. of the Old English version of Bæda written Cedmon, Ceadmann) is not explicable by means of Old English; the statement that it means "boatman" is founded on the corrupt gloss liburnam, ced, where ced is an editorial misreading for ceol. It is most probably the British Cadman, intermediate between the Old Celtic Catumanus and the modern Welsh Cadfan. Possibly the poet may have been of British descent, though the inference is not certain, as British names may sometimes have been given to English children. The name Caedwalla or Ceadwalla was borne by a British king mentioned by Bæda and by a king of the West Saxons. The initial element Caed—or Cead (probably adopted from British names in which it represents catu, war) appears combined with an Old English terminal element in the name Caedbaed (cp., however, the Irish name Cathbad), and hypocoristic forms of names containing it were borne by the English saints Ceadda (commonly known as St Chad) and his brother Cedd, called Ceadwealla in one MS. of the Old English Martyrology. A Cadmon witnesses a Buckinghamshire charter of about A.D. 948.
The older editions of the so-called "Cædmon's Paraphrase" by F. Junius (1655); B. Thorpe (1832), with an English translation; K.W. Bouterwek (1851-1854); C.W.M. Grein in his Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie (1857) are superseded, so far as the text is concerned, by R. Wülker's re-edition of Grein's Bibliothek, Bd. ii. (1895). This work contains also the texts of the Hymn and the Dream of the Rood. The pictorial illustrations of the Junius MS. were published in 1833 by Sir H. Ellis.
(H. Br.)
[1] It is a significant fact that the Alfredian version, instead of translating this sentence, introduces the verses with the words, "This is the order of the words."
[2] The invention of these names was perhaps suggested by Pericope Oollae et Oolibae, which may have been a current title for the 23rd chapter of Ezekiel.