Baring-Gould’s sources: Anglican Martyrology, published by John Wilson. Authority:—Bede: Hist. Eccl. iv. 24.

According to an usage very general in the 7th century in England, but principally prevailing in Celtic countries, monasteries and nunneries were placed under the rule of one abbot or abbess. This was the case at Whitby, where the abbess Hilda governed a community of men, as well as one of women; and she inspired the monks subject to her authority with so great a devotion to their rule, so true a love of sacred literature, that this monastery, ruled by a woman, became a true school of missionaries, and even of bishops. But not all the bishops and saints nurtured in her school, occupy in the annals of the human mind a place comparable to that held by an old cowherd who lived on the lands belonging to Hilda's community. It is on the lips of this cowherd that Anglo-Saxon speech first bursts into poetry, and nothing in the whole history of European literature is more original or more religious than this first utterance of the English muse. His name was Ceadmon. He had already reached an advanced age, having spent his life in his humble occupation without ever learning music, or being able to join in the joyous choruses which held such a high place at the feasts and social gatherings of all classes, both poor and rich, among the Anglo-Saxons as among the Celts. When it was his turn to sing at any of these festal meetings, and the harp was handed to him, his custom was to rise from the table and go home. One evening, when he had thus withdrawn himself from his friends, he went back to his humble shed and went to sleep by the side of the cattle. During his slumber he heard a voice, which called him by name, and said to him, "Sing me something"; to which he replied, "I cannot sing, and that is why I have left the supper and am come hither." "Sing, notwithstanding," said the voice. "But what, then, shall I sing?" "Sing the beginning of the world: the Creation." Immediately on receiving this command he began to sing verses, of which before he had no knowledge, but which celebrated the glory and power of the Creator. On awaking he recollected all that he had sung in his dream, and hastened to tell all that had happened to him to the farmer in whose service he was.

The Abbess Hilda, when the story was repeated to her, called for Ceadmon and questioned him in the presence of all the learned men whom she could assemble around her. He was made to relate his vision and recite his songs, and then the different passages of sacred history and various points of doctrine were explained to him that he might put them into verse. The next morning he was again called, and immediately began to repeat all that had been told him, in verses, which were pronounced to be excellent. He was thus discovered all at once to possess the gift of improvisation in his mother tongue. Hilda, and her learned assessors, did not hesitate to recognise in this a special gift of God, worthy of all respect and of the most tender care. She received Ceadmon and his whole family within the monastic community of Whitby, and afterwards admitted him to the number of monks who were under her rule, and made him carefully translate the whole Bible into Anglo-Saxon. As soon, accordingly, as the sacred history and the gospel were narrated to him, he made himself master of the tale, ruminated it, as Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)] said, and transformed it into songs, so beautiful that all who listened to him were delighted. He thus put into verse the whole of Genesis and Exodus, with other portions of the Old Testament, and, afterwards the life and passion of Our Lord, and the Acts of the Apostles. His talent and his poetic faculty thus went on, day by day, to fuller development, and he devoted numerous songs to such subjects as were best calculated to induce his companions to forsake evil, and love and practise the good: the terrors of the last judgment, the pains of hell, the joys of paradise—all these great and momentous subjects were in their turn woven into verse. The fragments that remain enable us to estimate the earnest and impassioned inspirations, strongly Christian and profoundly original, which characterised these first efforts of genius, barbarous, but subdued and baptized. But it would be a totally mistaken idea to recognise in the Abbess Hilda's dependant, nothing but a poet or a literary pioneer; he was, above all, a primitive Christian, a true monk, and, in one word, a saint. His mind was simple and humble, mild and pure; he served God with tranquil devotion, grateful for the extraordinary grace that he had received from heaven. But he was full of zeal for monastic regularity. No frivolous or worldly subjects ever inspired his verse; he composed his songs only that they might be useful to the soul, and their solemn beauty did even more for the conversion than for the delight of his countrymen. Many were moved by them to despise this world, and to turn with ardent love to the divine life. He died as poets seldom die. At the very beginning of his illness he desired his bed to be made in that part of the infirmary which was assigned to the dying, and, while smiling and talking cheerfully with his brethren, asked for the viaticum . At the moment when he was about to administer the Communion to himself, from the pyx brought from the Church, according to the usage of the period, and while holding in his hands the Holy Eucharist, he asked all those around him, if any one had any grudge against him, or any complaint to make? All answered, "No." Then said he, "I, too, my children, have a mind at peace with all God's servants." A little while after he had received the venerable Sacrament, as they were about to waken the monks for Matins [the night prayer of the Divine Office], he made the sign of the Cross, laid his head on the pillow, and fell asleep in silence, to awake no more.