Tennyson.
The Story of England’s First Poet[3]
By George Philip Krapp
[3] Reprinted by permission from “In Oldest England” by George Philip Krapp. Copyright, 1912, by Longmans, Green & Co.
On the northern coast of England in the town of Whitby (White-town) was built a monastery many centuries ago by a woman whose name was Hild; and when the monastery was completed she became the abbess. In this monastery ruled over by the Abbess Hild, there were not only monks and nuns, but also a number of servants and helpers who had not devoted themselves to the religious life. Among these was a poor herdsman whose name was Cadmon. He could neither read nor write, and his work in the monastery consisted in taking care of the cows and other cattle which were needed to supply the monastery table with milk and butter.
Now it was a common custom for Cadmon and his friends to entertain themselves, when the day’s work was done, by sitting around the fire telling stories and singing songs. Among other amusements they had one especially which is known as “passing the harp.” According to this custom, the harp was passed along from one person to another, and as it came each man’s turn, he took the harp and sang a song to its accompaniment. Most people in those days knew many stories which they could recite in this way, but unfortunately for Cadmon, this was an accomplishment which he could never learn. Consequently when he saw the harp approaching him, he would get up and leave the circle, ashamed to confess that he could not sing a song as the others had done.
It happened that one night Cadmon left the group of his friends in this way, as he had often done before, and went into the stable where he was to pass the night watching the cattle. After a time he fell asleep. As he lay sleeping, he heard a voice calling to him, which said: “Cadmon, sing for me.” Then Cadmon answered the voice, saying: “I cannot sing; and it is for that reason that I have left the company of my friends and have come hither.” “Nevertheless, I say you must sing for me,” the voice continued. “What shall I sing?” asked Cadmon. “Sing for me,” the voice answered, “the story of how all things were created.” And then Cadmon, greatly to his own astonishment, found that he was able to sing, and he began to sing the praises of God the Creator in verses which he had never heard before.
The next morning, when Cadmon awoke from the sleep in which he had had this dream or vision, the strangest part of it was that he remembered perfectly what he had sung in his sleep during the night, and better still, he was able to add other verses to these. He told what had happened to him to his master, and his master went directly to Abbess Hild and repeated the story to her. Hild immediately called Cadmon to her, and, sending for several learned monks, she bade them recite a passage of Scripture in English to Cadmon, and then she asked Cadmon to turn what he had heard into verse. The next morning Cadmon came back and recited to her in perfect and melodious verse all that he had been told by the learned monks. Then Hild immediately perceived that this poor cowherd in her monastery was possessed of a very precious gift. She gave orders that he should be accepted as a monk into her monastery, and that the other monks should teach him all the story of the Bible. This was so done, and being unable to read, Cadmon learned all the stories of the Bible by having them told to him, and then he turned them into poetical form. The monks were glad to write down the poems as Cadmon recited them, and thus together they put into verse the whole story of the creation of the world, of the fall of man, of the children of Israel and the Exodus out of Egypt into the Promised Land, and many other stories contained in the Bible.
