Cædmon <span><span /></span><span><span /></span> is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch during the abbacy of St. Hilda , he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned
to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the
8th-century historian Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet.
Caedmon was a cowherd who later became a monk. The excerpt describes him as someone who was once lost and then was found. He did not know he had the gift of song until a miracle made him believe that he did.
