Cædmon's Hymn
Old English Reading 1
Chapter 3 · Cædmon's Hymn
🎶 Cædmon's Hymn
The Lord's Prayer in Chapter 2 was prose. This chapter reads a poem: nine short lines, each split into two halves, held together by sound instead of rhyme. The wording is also Northumbrian, not the West Saxon of Old English Grammar 1, so the spellings will look a little different.
How an Old English line works
- Two half-lines. Each line is split by a pause (a caesura), shown by the slash in the text below.
- Alliteration. The article says the first heavily stressed syllable of the first half-line alliterates with the first heavily stressed syllable of the second half. So in line 1, hergan and hefaenrīcaes both begin with h.
- No rhyme, no fixed number of syllables. The article calls the poem "metrically regular" and "traditional Old English alliterative poetry" with "formulaic diction" and "ornamental poetic variation", especially in the last five lines. (Variation means naming the same person in several ways, as Uard, Dryctin, Frēa do here.)
The text
1. Nū scylun hergan / hefaenrīcaes Uard,
"Now [we] shall honour / heaven-kingdom's guardian,"
2. metudæs maecti / end his mōdgidanc,
"the measurer's might / and his mind's plan,"
3. uerc Uuldurfadur, / suē hē uundra gihuaes,
"the work of the father of glory / as he of each wonder,"
4. ēci dryctin / ōr āstelidæ
"eternal lord, / the origin established;"
5. hē ǣrist scōp / aelda barnum
"he first created / for the children of men"
6. heben til hrōfe, / hāleg scepen.
"heaven for a roof, / holy creator."
7. Thā middungeard / moncynnæs Uard,
"Then Middle-earth, / mankind's guardian,"
8. eci Dryctin, / æfter tīadæ
"eternal Lord, / after bestowed"
9. fīrum foldu, / Frēa allmectig.
"the lands to men, / Lord almighty."
Source: Wikipedia, Cædmon's Hymn, section "Text and translation": normalised Old English of the Moore Bede (Northumbrian, line 5b aelda) and the translation, as printed there; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The article gives no word-for-word gloss, so none is printed here; the notes below give my own readings, marked as mine.
Reading it line by line (the routine, applied to verse)
Lines 1 to 2
- Verb: scylun hergan, "shall honour". scylun is a plural of sċulan "shall", one of the preterite-present verbs of Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 9, whose plural stem is sċul-. The spelling is not West Saxon, and the ending -un for -on is my observation. hergan is the infinitive, "to praise".
- Subject: not written. The article supplies "[we]" in square brackets. Verse often leaves out what the verb ending makes clear.
- Object: Uard "guardian", with hefaenrīcaes in front of it, genitive: the -aes is the genitive -es of Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 3 (hundes), spelled the Northumbrian way.
- Line 2 adds two more things to be honoured, both objects of hergan: metudæs maecti "the measurer's might" (metudæs is genitive) and his mōdgidanc "his mind's plan". end is "and".
Lines 3 to 4
- uerc Uuldurfadur "the work of the father of glory": a fourth object, uerc "work", with a compound Uuldurfadur ("glory-father"). The article translates it with "of", but I cannot see a genitive ending in the form, so I do not claim one.
- suē hē uundra gihuaes "as he (did) of each wonder". uundra is genitive plural (-a, as hunda in Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 3) and gihuaes "of each" is genitive singular. The verb is held back to line 4.
- ēci dryctin ōr āstelidæ "the eternal lord established the origin": ēci dryctin is the subject (nominative), ōr "origin, beginning" the object. āstelidæ looks like a weak-verb past with the dental ending of Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 8 (my reading; the article does not parse it).
Lines 5 to 6
- hē ǣrist scōp "he first created". scōp is a past with no ending, first or third singular, like stæl in Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 9. ǣrist is "first" (compare ǣr "before" in the prepositions list of Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 10; that ǣrist is a superlative of the same word is my reading).
- aelda barnum: aelda is a genitive plural "of men"; barnum has the dative plural -um: "for the children". Together "for the children of men".
- heben til hrōfe "heaven for a roof": heben is the thing created, and hrōfe is a dative (-e) after til, which the article's translation renders as "for". hāleg scepen "holy creator" restates the subject.
Lines 7 to 9
- Thā "then" begins the sentence. The subject takes three lines: moncynnæs Uard "mankind's guardian" (moncynnæs genitive), eci Dryctin "eternal Lord", and Frēa allmectig "Lord almighty".
- The verb is tīadæ, which the article translates "bestowed", with æfter "afterwards" in front of it. The object is middungeard ("Middle-earth", the world) and foldu ("lands"), and fīrum (dative plural, -um) is "for men". The article's translation reads "after bestowed the lands to men"; how middungeard and foldu fit as objects is my reading.
Where the alliteration falls
| Line | Alliterating syllables |
|---|---|
| 1 | hergan / hefaenrīcaes |
| 2 | metudæs maecti / mōdgidanc |
| 6 | heben til hrōfe / hāleg |
| 7 | middungeard / moncynnæs |
| 9 | fīrum foldu / Frēa |
These five lines show the pattern from the article most clearly. Lines 3 to 5 and 8 begin on vowels or on letters that are less obvious (uerc / Uuldur / uundra in line 3 begin with the letter u, which the scribe used for w). That the vowels in lines 4, 5 and 8 alliterate with each other is my own knowledge of the verse form, not a claim from the article.
New words
| Old English | Meaning | Modern English relative |
|---|---|---|
| hergan | to praise, honour | — |
| Uard | guardian | ward |
| maecti | might | might |
| mōdgidanc | mind's plan, thought | mood, thought |
| uerc | work | work |
| dryctin | lord | — |
| scōp | created (past) | (cf. shape) |
| barn | child | (Scots bairn) |
| hrōf | roof | roof |
| allmectig | almighty | almighty |
The meanings follow the article's translation. The "Modern English relative" column is my own knowledge and unverified.
📋 Quick Reference
| Feature | In the Hymn |
|---|---|
| Line shape | Two half-lines with a pause; the first stressed syllable of each half alliterates |
| Unexpressed subject | "[we]" in line 1 |
| Genitive | hefaenrīcaes, metudæs, moncynnæs, aelda, uundra |
| Dative plural -um | barnum, fīrum |
| Preterite-present | scylun (plural of "shall") |
| Variation | Uard, Dryctin, Frēa: the same person named in several ways |
✏️ Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. Translate Nū scylun hergan. Where is the subject?
Show answer
"Now [we] shall praise." The subject is not written; the plural of scylun gives it ("we").
2. What case is hefaenrīcaes, and what does it mean in the line?
Show answer
Genitive: "of the heaven-kingdom".
3. Which letter alliterates in line 1?
Show answer
h: hergan and hefaenrīcaes.
4. Which letter alliterates in line 6?
Show answer
h: heben, hrōfe, hāleg.
5. What ending is on barnum, and why?
Show answer
-um, the dative plural: "for the children".
6. What tense is scōp, and what is notable about its form?
Show answer
Past; it has no ending, as strong verbs have in the first and third person singular (Old English Grammar 1, Chapter 9).
7. Give three names for God in lines 7 to 9.
Show answer
Uard ("guardian"), Dryctin ("Lord") and Frēa ("Lord"); this repetition is the "variation" the article mentions.
8. How many rhetorical sections does the article give the poem, and where does the division fall?
Show answer
Two: lines 1 to 4 and lines 5 to 9. (The article adds that some scholars argue for three.)
9. What is the translation of allmectig, and what Modern English word is it?
Show answer
"Almighty"; it is the same word, all + mighty.
10. What does the word in line 5b change between the versions of the poem?
Show answer
It is aelda in the Moore Bede (Northumbrian) and in other versions eordu, ylda, eorðan or eorðe. The five-way split is how the article groups the manuscripts.