[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 One evening, when he had thus withdrawn himself from his friends, he went back to his humble shed and went to sleep by the side of the cattle.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.