In those days, at feasts, it was the custom for one after another to be asked for a song, and the harp was passed round the table, each taking it in turn and accompanying himself whilst he sang. Cædmon thought that he could not sing, and when he saw that his turn was coming near, he used to get up and quietly leave the table and go home. One day he had left the feast in this way and gone to the stable where it was his duty that night to take care of the horses. Having done his work he settled himself to sleep, and in the night one stood by his side, and calling to him, said, “Cædmon, sing some song to me.” He answered, “I cannot sing, for that reason I left the feast and withdrew to this place, because I cannot sing.” But he who stood by his side answered, “However, you shall sing.” “What shall I sing?” asked Cædmon; and the answer came, “Sing the beginning of created beings.” Then in his dream he sang in praise of God the Creator with words which he had never heard before. When he awoke, he remembered what he had sung, and added more verses to those which had come to him in his dream. He told the steward who was set over him of this gift of song that had been granted to him in his sleep, and the steward took him to the Abbess Hilda. She bade him in the presence of herself and of several learned men repeat the verses which he had made, and they all decided that it must be through the grace of God that this gift had come to him. They explained to him a passage from the Bible and bade him go away and turn it into verse. Next morning he came back and recited to them the excellent verses which he had made. Then Hilda bade him give up his work on the farm and come into the convent and become a monk, that he might devote himself to cultivating the gift of song which he had received. She directed some of the brethren to teach him the sacred history contained in the Bible, that he might turn it into song. After they had taught him, Cædmon would think over all that he had heard, turning it over in his mind as the cow chews the cud, till he brought it out again as harmonious verse, which he would sweetly repeat to his masters, who now in their turn became his hearers. He sang of the Creation and of the doings of the people of Israel and of the life and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ, and tried by his poems to lead men to love virtue and hate vice. Through his sweet singing great fame came to Hilda’s convent, and after some years he died there in great peace and holiness.