A Shepherd's Dream

Who was the first poet in the English language?

It was a question that someone like me, a college student studying the great works of Western civilization, should’ve known the answer to. Yet I’d never thought about it.

Chaucer wrote his masterpieces too late to claim the title. Could it be the writer of an Arthurian epic? Or maybe the unknown author of Beowulf in the eleventh century?

I looked into it, and I not only found my answer, but also a story to inspire me: In the late seventh century, Caedmon, a herdsman living in what is now Yorkshire, England, became the father of English poetry.

These were pastoral times. The Roman Empire had fallen. Christianity was spreading in Britain, which was mostly populated by farmers, breeders and shepherds, like Caedmon.

Abbeys were sprouting up as centers of knowledge, with the monks and nuns holding in high regard their handwritten texts of history and poetry.

Anglo-Saxon poetry was recorded in Latin. Not that the peasants could’ve read it even in their native tongue; most were illiterate. Caedmon would’ve heard about such texts when the king of Northumbria built famous Whitby Abbey close to his home.

However, like most peasants, Caedmon wasn’t interested in the learning the abbey had to offer. He was satisfied listening to his friends sing uncomplicated country songs and tell fairy tales around a fire.

Caedmon had no care for books, or God, for that matter. He was a herdsman, plain and simple. He had no higher purpose for his life, no dream in his humble heart. Until one night.

Young Caedmon sat around the dinner table with his friends after a long day with the horses, cattle and sheep. His companions agreed that everyone should sing a song. But Caedmon had never been taught to sing, nor to play a musical instrument, and felt shame because of this lack. He saw at the end of the table a harp, or a lyre perhaps. It was passed from man to man as each contributed a song. I cannot sing, Caedmon thought. Who will want to listen to me embarrass myself?

Before the lyre reached him, Caedmon jumped up and sped out of the room on the pretense of tending to the horses. He ran to the stable and, sleep coming easy to the hardworking peasant, he lay down to rest. While enjoying this repose, a mysterious figure appeared to him in a dream.

“Caedmon,” the messenger said, “sing some song to me.”

“I cannot sing,” Caedmon replied. “That is why I ran away.”

“However, you shall sing.”

“What shall I sing?”

“The beginning of creation.”