Caedmon's Hymn Mike Chisholm
2025
(apart from the Fuller Brooch)
Originally written as four posts in the blog Idiotic Hat (https://idiotic-hat.blogspot.com) The images are from the series of digital photo-collages Ring Hoard (https://mike-chisholm-photo.squarespace.com/rings)
ublished in this on-demand edition using the Blurb publishing service (https://www.blurb.co.uk/user/store/dvrman)
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Periodically, I rediscover an interest in Anglo-Saxon, or "Old English". This is an example of a road not taken, a blue remembered hill glimmering in the distance where, almost certainly, I shall now never live. Nevertheless, I still find myself from time to time idly browsing through the travel brochures. Anglo-Saxon is the bane of those who study English at the older universities. Back in the days when English was first established as a subject of study at university level, there was much sneering at this new, soft subject. It would be little more than the swapping of subjective opinions about leisure reading, they said, mere "higher gossip". To counter these jibes, the curriculum was stiffened with a hefty dose of philology and, above all, the compulsory study of Anglo-Saxon. There, you mocking classicists, how's about that for a "soft" option, then? Now, let us be clear. Old English is not the language of the Tudors, a familiar tongue quaintly bespattered with "thee", "thou", and "wherefore". Nor is it even the language of Chaucer, a vaguely familiar face seen in a distorting mirror. It is the name given to the dialects spoken by the Germanic tribes that invaded and settled the southern parts of these islands after the Roman legions caught the last bus home in the 5th century. It's about as different from modern English as a pig is from a sausage – it takes some explanation to see how one has become the other. Most students of English grit their teeth and get their Anglo-Saxon over with. It's a rite of academic passage equivalent to those Teutonic duelling scars. I think it would be fair to say most find the subject difficult, dreary, and demoralising. Anglo-Saxon is an inflected language, and tables of declensions and conjugations have to be learned. As far as I know, no audio-visual immersive learning package has been developed for the language, and this is a bit of a shock for students brought up in modern AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
racters with instructive adventures to follow ("Lesson 6: The erman's wife has a wart charmed").
re is also, unfortunately, no Saxon Ovid to discover. Very few Old lish texts have survived, and those that have are either Eeyore-ish ning about the weather and the unfair fixity of fate, or strange texts pholstered with Christianized stretch covers, through which pagan erns still peep (rather like those churches in South America where ent local gods are worshipped under the names of Catholic saints). It be a glum prospect, a bleak upland barrier to the lush valleys of Keats Shakespeare beyond.
sh I could say "good teaching helps", but it usually doesn't. Scholars of lo-Saxon tend to be specialists, and – like all enthusiasts – they can be aging personally, but tend to ignore the fact that the perceived actions of their subject are often the very same elements that others less than compelling. Listening to a recorded reading of Beowulf – ch is rather like listening to someone trying to read the weather cast with a mouthful of salty gravel – is not the seductive experience it magined by some scholars to be.
ess, that is, you have some predisposition. As did the young W.H. en when he heard J.R.R. Tolkien recite a passage of Beowulf: "I was lbound. This poetry, I knew, was going to be my dish". It also helps if have studied German, and already coped with the grammar of Latin.
if you can imagine yourself wielding a spear in the battle line at don, or scratching away at manuscripts in a monastery at Whitby, or if can respond to the atavistic allure of a tribal time, embodied in the geous, gaudy treasures of Sutton Hoo, then you may find much of rest in the pages of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader and the volumes of Early English Text Society, where the footnotes swarm over the text ivy over ruins.
Three Year Trek through Eng Lit. A place where I thought, "I could live here, if I had to. Perhaps, some day, who knows, maybe I'll come back". But then our little company crested the brow of that bleak hill, and we were gazing upon the fertile fields below, where sonnets grazed and great novels sparkled in the sun.
en people reflect on the Anglo-Saxon worldview they sometimes invoke mage which has passed into the general fund of anecdote: this life is like arrow which flies into the Great Hall in winter – it passes from the dark cold through a splendid warmth and brightness, briefly, then flies back into the dark and cold again.
ing aside the utter unlikeliness of this scenario – a sparrow flying ght through the hall, rather than perching gratefully in the rafters and ing in your mead? – it does have a certain resonance, and casts a itual light onto a people generally characterised by a stoic grumpiness, a of strong drink and garish jewellery, and an inexplicable urge to die in e (which may explain the subsequent reputation of the British abroad).
source of this little parable is the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum lesiastical History of the English People), written around 730 AD by the erable Bede, a Northumbrian monk. In Book II, chapter xiii, to be cise. Read in context, however, the tale of the allegorical sparrow is ally more poignant, and more comic, than it might seem.
t context is Bede's account of the conversion to Christianity of the pagan win, King of Northumbria, around 625 AD.
iously on Bede's Ecclesiastical History:
lowing an encounter with a mysterious tall, dark stranger in a dream and a foiled assination attempt when in exile with King Raedwald, Edwin has been predisposed to nversion at the hands of Paulinus, a Roman missionary who is said to have borne a king resemblance to the tall, dark stranger in Edwin's dream, and who miraculously ns out to know the secret hand gesture revealed to Edwin in the dream.
ng a good Anglo-Saxon, however, Edwin cannot convert his people out at least a pretence of consultation (plus ça change...). So he gathers council of wise men – in Anglo-Saxon, a moot, or possibly a thing. The AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAA
and moot points arising – is: 1. So, what do we make of this Christianity business? Any objections? First up is the Top Pagan Priest. Surprisingly (at least in Bede's account) he's all for it. Indeed, he says, I knew the pagan thing was rubbish all along: look, if it wasn't rubbish, why aren't I richer and more powerful? I move: let's convert to Christianity immediately. Hey, I've seen the jewellery these Roman boys wear! And I really fancy one of those big curly sticks! Next up is wise old warrior man, Sitting Bull with a gigantic sword and a snowy white beard. He utters the immortal parable of the sparrow. Very cool, wise old Geordie warrior. But, if you actually read it, what he is saying is this: There is an infinity of unknowable darkness before and after the brief span of a human life. Getafix over there has never had anything useful whatsoever to say about those dark bits fore and aft. If the new priestly boy does have something useful to offer – and especially if it stops my Missus gibbering about timor mortis in the small hours – then, hey, WTF?
[A grunted chorus of "WTF! WTF!" applauds these words] Boss Priest is back on his feet. "Through the Chair! Through the Chair!! I totally agree with my scary warrior friend from Sunderland. In fact, the old ways were such rubbish, that I'm going to ride over to the shrine ... right now ... on a stallion ... with a SPEAR and a SWORD ..." [sharp intake of communal breath at this heresy] "... and totally TRASH the place! Anyone else up for it? I reckon this Christianity is going to be fun!" ["Yeah! WTF!! WTF!!" Stamping of feet. They saddle up and ride out.]
Ring Hoard images: the battered remnants of a sacred
ee multitude, it, concluded was distracted; he lost no time, for as of rings, beholding perhaps hidden in a he remote corner ofbut North n as he drew near the temple he profaned the same, casting into it the spear which s, near the Saxon settlement of Stithenaece, just inside the held; and rejoicing in the knowledge of the worship of the true God, he elaw, and within the lands once dominated by the Iceni... mmanded his companions to destroy the temple, with all its enclosures, by fire. This ce where the idols were is still shown, not far from York, to the eastward, beyond river Derwent, and is now called Godmundingham, where the high priest, by the piration of the true God, profaned and destroyed the altars which he had himself nsecrated.
e does not record whether item 2 on the agenda – the Mead Fund – got discussed.
revival of interest in the Anglo-Saxon thing was sparked up this time n I stumbled across the story of Caedmon and his dream. The source, e again, is Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Book IV, chapter xxiv) but it's a y that has fascinated many people, and – like the tale of the sparrow ng through the hall – you come across it all over the place. Poets, icularly, are drawn to Caedmon: he is, after all, the first named English t. You might say that this is nothing less than the foundation myth of lish literature.
dmon's Hymn is, in itself, one of the lesser items in the less than mighty English corpus. It sits alongside some Mercian Hymns and Kentish rters in an unenticing section of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader entitled amples of non-West-Saxon dialects". It is unremarkable, in other words, ss you attach to it the story told by Bede. The story goes like this:
dmon was a stable hand in the employ of the abbey at Whitby, which was by a converted Saxon noblewoman called Hilda (I'm pretty sure this was considered an intrinsically amusing name in the 7th century). Now, in e days people had to make their own entertainment and so the ession of a party piece was more or less de rigueur. Obviously, the bar not set high for the party piece of a cowherd, but nonetheless the ability ipe up with an amusing song while your companions drank themselves nsible was not considered an unreasonable expectation.
s Caedmon, however, had somehow never got the hang of singing, and ld always slope off home to the stable whenever it came round to his n to sing. Bede does not record whether this coincided with his turn to a round, but you might wonder. Anyway, one night after he had made customary retreat from the merry-making back to his hayloft Caedmon one of those curious Saxon-style dreams, in which a mysterious being ears by your bed and starts issuing instructions, commands, and phesies. Clearly, there were more angels out and about at that time than encounter nowadays, or perhaps there were more nocturnal intruders a good line in exculpatory improvisation.
an angel – went directly for our man's vulnerable spot. He/she/it spake thusly: "Caedmon, sing me a song". In Bede's words: He answered, "I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left the entertainment, and retired to this place, because I could not sing." The other who talked to him, replied, "However, you shall sing." "What shall I sing?" rejoined he. "Sing the beginning of created beings," said the other.
So he did, and very good it was, too. When he woke up he could remember it all, and it wasn't just nonsense about scrambled eggs, so he added some new bits as well. "Caedmon's Hymn" had arrived. Now, it's fairly obvious that a hymn of praise to the Lord of Creation was not going to raise the roof at the next cowherd's bash. Moreover, any talk of angels visiting stable lads in the night was going to raise eyebrows in the monastery, so Caedmon was brushed off, scrubbed up, and marched in to see the Abbess Hilda herself. Abbess Hilda (that's Saint Hilda to you) was no innocent. She had been part of the same extended, incestuously intertwined pagan royal family that gave us King Edwin of Northumbria, about whom we heard in Part II. Persuaded to convert in her thirties by the same missionary, Paulinus, she went on to an illustrious career as a sort of monastic trouble-shooter, stamping out any funny stuff, imposing discipline, encouraging learning, and eventually setting up a veritable bishop-factory at her own abbey at Whitby. She died amid an appropriate son et lumière of piety, with various susceptible nuns seeing simultaneous visions of Hilda's soul ascending to heaven. OK, so Caedmon is brought before that Hilda. Perhaps suspecting that her pious leg was being pulled, but impressed nonetheless, she sets a test. Again, in Bede's words:
urning the next morning, gave it to them composed in most excellent verse; ereupon the abbess, embracing the grace of God in the man, instructed him to quit secular habit, and take upon him the monastic life; which being accordingly done, associated him to the rest of the brethren in her monastery, and ordered that he uld be taught the whole series of sacred history.
e move, Caedmon! Say goodbye, draughty stable, and get belly-up to the table: talk about singing for your supper! No wonder poets have found such an inspiration over the years.
e cows nched or stirred or were still. I at home and lonely, h in good measure. Until sudden angel affrighted me — light effacing my feeble beam, orest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying: the cows as before re calm, and nothing was burning, hing but I, as that hand of fire ched my lips and scorched my tongue d pulled my voice o the ring of the dance.
m: Caedmon, by Denise Levertov
Biblically-minded may see a reference to Isaiah 6 here, where the angel touches a hot coal from the altar to Isaiah's lips urify him for prophesy. Isaiah 6:4 is one of my favourite bits of Biblical language: "And the posts of the door moved at oice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke". Boom!)
dmon lived out his life as a devout monk, turning out religious verse Bede says, a cow chewing on the cud of the sacred history he was fed not sure that Bede had really thought this metaphor through to the product, so to speak).
wever, once you get used to the regular meals and the dry bedding, the nastic life is not to everyone's taste:
or cowherds maddened with cow-watching will ever read The Grey Psalter of Antrim. I have copied it these thirteen years waiting for the good bits – High King of the Roads, are there any good bits in The Grey Psalter of Antrim? (text illegible here because of teeth-marks.) from: Margin Prayer from an Ancient Psalter, by Ian Duhig
Don't you love those teeth-marks? "Hey, brother Caedmon, chew me a song out of this!"
ought it would be worth saying a few muddled words about Angloon poetry, before finally letting Caedmon have his mead-hall moment.
n't know about you, but – despite a lifetime of poetry reading and a few s of intensive (OK, fairly casual) study – I've never quite got the hang prosody", that poet's rule-book full of exotic names for the 57 varieties um ti tum", not least because the point always seems to have been to k the rules at the first opportunity. It all seems a bit of a tease.
n spot a sonnet easily enough, and an iambic pentameter feels like a urite old coat, but don't look at me if you want to know about anelles" or "sestinas" (no, these are not models of Ford family saloon). I mit that I'm more of a wine drinker, as it were, than a wine taster, when it es to poems. However, I think there are four things that need to be wn about Anglo-Saxon poems:
hey are composed in Old English. Obvious, but important. Old English n inflected language, and a lot of the work done by prepositions and d order in Modern English is done by case endings. This means word er can be altered and jumbled for effect, although not as severely as in n poetry, in which the aim seems to have been to cut up and reassemble words in the order most calculated to baffle the reader.
he surviving texts are written versions of an oral tradition. Oral poetry fferent. It is a communal experience, it has to be memorable, its effects e to enter the brain via the ears rather than the eyes, and its subtleties de in the skill and ingenuity of the teller. If one wanted to be descending, one could compare oral poetry to bedtime stories: familiar s told over and over again, with variations and innovations gradually ing introduced, if only to stop the teller dying of boredom. So-called nings" are symptomatic, little poetic coinages that ring changes on mon themes, but which are entirely formulaic: "whale road", "whale ", "sail road", "swan shop", "seal bath" and "fish toilet" would all be nings for "the sea". The sea comes up a lot in Anglo-Saxon poems.
particularly sticky, but does lack that wonderful ability of rhyme to construct anticipatory structures. When you hear the words "There was a young man from Caracas", you know exactly what sort of ride you're in for, and where it's likely to take you. 4. The Anglo-Saxon poetic line is implicitly broken into two halves, and is often printed with a break (or "caesura") between them, though this never appears in the manuscripts. I have no idea how anyone knows this, but I do like the effect. It reminds me of the "call and response" structure of that slightly demented poem "Jubilate Agno" by Christopher Smart. Oh, and one other thing. No-one really knows whether the twenty-one surviving and suspiciously similar versions of Caedmon's Hymn are an authentically transmitted "text", or whether someone rendered Bede's Latin version of the original back into Old English when they translated the Ecclesiasical History back in the 9th century. A case of "Anglo-Saxon whispers", perhaps. Bede himself has some wise words to say on translation, talking about his own Latin version of the Hymn: This is the sense, but not the words in order as he sang them in his sleep; for verses, though never so well composed, cannot be literally translated out of one language into another, without losing much of their beauty and loftiness.
Amen to that, Brother Bede.
wherd! Take it away, Caedmon!
lause and foot-stomping]
u sculon herigean heofonrices Weard w must we praise / heaven-kingdom's Guardian eotodes meahte and his modgeþanc Measurer's might / and his mind-plans orc Wuldor-Fæder swa he wundra gehwæs work of the Glory-Father, / when he of wonders of every one e Drihten or onstealde rnal Lord / the beginning established e ærest sceop ielda bearnum first created / for men's sons ofon to hrofe halig Scyppend aven as a roof / holy Creator middangeard moncynnes Weard n middle-earth / mankind's Guardian e Drihten æfter teode rnal Lord / afterwards made um foldan Frea ælmihtig. men earth, / Master almighty.
nce, broken by the sound of various swineherds breaking wind]
, is that it, Caedmon? No monsters, no swordplay, no seafaring? I pose that's what they call modern poetry, eh? Come on, someone, let's e a proper sing-song! How about "Big Bad Berghild from Bermondsey"? ogether now...
Mike Caedmon's Chisholm Hymn