Thursday 19 December 2013

Welcome!

Here is the beginning of the blog for Cædmon: The Lord's Poet, a book by John K. Deaconson. I can trace the origin of this book to about 1996, but as I had other things on my mind back then, it has taken a long time to reach the point when I feel ready to release it to the world. Hopefully this blog will mean that it will reach one or two people that it would otherwise pass by.

So what is The Lord's Poet all about?

In Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, he devotes a single chapter to a man called Cædmon (also written as Caedmon), who sings a short song about the creation of the world according to the Christian Bible. This is a significant moment for Bede, as it marks the beginning of a movement to use vernacular Anglo-Saxon verse forms for Christian themes.

The Lord's Poet delves into the history of the mid 7th century in Britain and finds a place for this enigmatic poet to inhabit, a place far removed from the cow byre of an estate in North Yorkshire which is the setting for the beginning of both Bede's version and mine.

Just how much of Bede's story is invention is impossible to say, but his reputation is founded on a reliance upon eye witness accounts, and he is known to have had close contact with monks from Streoneshalh (Whitby) from other stories that he told about that place. Cædmon has part of the sort of information that would make him considered a saint, but the story was incomplete in Bede's time, so for example there are no dates connected with him that would supply a feast day and crucially there are no miracles recorded surrounding this figure. He is however considered to be a saint by the Roman Catholic church (no feast day) and by the Church of England (feast day 11th February).

For me the part of Bede's story which has the most power is the account of his death, for Cædmon has a beautiful Christian death: perhaps only Bede's own death has a similar tranquil quality to it. I have therefore included an epilogue to my book which ties in with the story that I have given the younger Cædmon while keeping the serenity and sanctity that Bede's account gives to the Lord's Poet.