CAEDMON (keicl'ma'n) (died 680 A. D.). The earliest English Christian poet, Caedmon, lived and sang at a time when the language was called Anglo-Saxon and was very different from the English of today.
It is said that he was an uneducated cowherd and that once there appeared to him in sleep one who said to him : " Caedmon, sing me some song." " I cannot sing," was the answer. " But you shall sing to me." " What," asked Caedmon, " shall I sing?" " Sing the beginning of created things." In the morning Caedmon told his dream to the abbess of Whitby, and he put into verse for her a part of the Scriptures. In recognition of his genius, he was made an inmate of the monastery and educated, and he spent the remainder of his life writing poems called Paraphrases' on the Bible histories and on other religious subjects.