Caedmon's Hymn

Nu sculon herigcan heofonrices Weard,

Meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc,

weorc Wuldorfæder swa he wundra gehwæs

ece Drihten, or onstealde.

He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum

heofen to hrofe halig Scyppend;

þa middangeard moncynnes Weard,

ece Drihten, ærfter teode,

firum foldan, Frea ælmihtig.

Now we shall praise heaven-kingdom's Guardian,

the Creator's might, and his mind-thought,

the works of the Glory-father: how he, each of us

wonders,

the eternal Lord, established at the beginning.

He first shaped for earth's children

heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.

Then a middle-yard, mankind's Guardian,

the eternal Lord, established afterwards,

the earth for the people, the Lord almighty.

Praise we the Lord

Of the heavenly kingdom,

God’s power and wisdom,

The works of his hand;

As the Father of glory,

Eternal Lord,

Wrought the beginning

Of all his wonders!

Holy Creator!

Warden of men!

First, for a roof,

For the children of earth

He established the heavens,

And founded the world,

And spread the dry land

For the living to dwell in.

Lord Everlasting!

Almighty God!

OE poetry was based on oral tradition. No books existed then, and scarcely anyone could read or write. The past was made known by a scop (поэт; бард), or minstrel, chanting[ʧɑːnt] (говорить нараспев) memorized poetry to an ass em bled group. Many devices of OE verse serve to aid the poet’s memory and make the shaping of his spoken poetry easier.

Alliteration. The verse of the Anglo-Saxons makes use of repetition, but instead of repeating vowel sounds at the ends of lines (as in rhyme), OE poetry employs alliteration – the repetition of identical consonant sounds at the beginning of words in the same lines. One consonant will be alliterated, or repeated, in one line, another in the next, and so on. For this reason OE poetry is referred as alliterative verse.

Caesura [sɪ'zjuərə ] (це зу ра). There is a strong rhythm, or recurrence of stressed syllables, in OE verse. A pause, or caesura, occurs in the middle of each line. Moreover, on either side of the caesura are always precisely two stressed syllables, though the number of unstressed syllables varies.

The poem is also formutaic [fɔːmju'leɪɪk]: that is, it relies on set formulae [i] or stock phrases or patterns to convey its meaning and effect. It is profoundly repetitive and full of synonyms. In terms of vocabulary, Caedmon’s Hymn offers us a lexicon for the divine.

God, for example, is the heofonrices Weard, the warden of the reich (kingdom) of heaven. He is also the Meotodes, the meter-оut (one who delivers judgments); the Wuldorfæder, father of glory; Drihten, a secular or political lord (here it’s used in a religious sense); the Scyppend, shaper, creator; and Frea ælmihtig, Almighty Freya=Old Norse for God.

So Caedmon’s Hymn takes a set of words for divinity, rulership, control, and authority and applies them to God. There is only one God, but many linguistic resources for naming him.

Caedmon adapts the older pagan words for rulership to a newer Christian purpose. Look at the phrase: eorðan bearnum heofen to hrofe. God created the world by eorðan bearnum heofen to hrofe =by putting a roof on heaven for the children of the earth. That’s the recollection of Old Norse (Scandinavian) Germanic pagan myth of creation - building a roof for Val hal la (Val hal la – the whole of the Val. Val = Scand. The heroic deed taken in battle; those who choose the val are Valkyries – воинственные девы)

Вал(ь)халла, Вал(ь)галла (др.-исл. Valhöll) в германо-скандинавской мифологии — небесный чертог для павших в бою, рай для доблестных воинов.

По легендам, представляет собой гигантский зал с крышей из позолоченных щитов, которые подпираются копьями. У этого зала 540 дверей и через каждую выйдут 800 воинов по зову бога Хеймдалля для последней битвы Рагнарёк. Воины, обитающие в Вальхалле, зовутся эйнхерии. Каждый день с утра они облачаются в доспехи и рубятся насмерть, а после воскресают и садятся за общий стол пировать. Едят они мясо вепря Сехримнира, которого забивают каждый день и каждый день он воскресает. Пьют же эйнхерии мёд, которым доится коза Хейдрун, стоящая в Вальхалле и жующая листья Мирового Древа Иггдрасиль. А ночью приходят прекрасные девы и ублажают воинов до утра.

Вальхалла по убеждениям христианства и крестителей Севера Европы является адом. Асы были отождествлены с демонами. Эйнхерии (герои) - с великими грешниками. Принцип бесконечной кровавой бойни и ежедневный пир после воскрешения из мёртвых (и отрастание отрубленных конечностей) - отождествлены с бесконечностью адских мук.

In Norse mythology, Valhalla (from Old Norse Valhöll "hall of the slain [sleɪn] умерщвлённый; убитый "^[1]) is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those that die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr. In Valhalla, the dead join the masses of those who have died in combat known as Einherjar, as well as various legendary Germanic heroes and kings, as they prepare to aid Odin during the events of Ragnarök. Before the hall stands the golden tree Glasir, and the hall's ceiling is thatched with golden shields. Various creatures live around Valhalla, such as the stag Eikþyrnir and the goat Heiðrún, both described as standing atop Valhalla and consuming the foliage of the tree Læraðr.

Valhalla is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, in Heimskringla, also written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in stanzas of an anonymous 10th century poem commemorating the death of a Eric Bloodaxe known as Eiríksmál as compiled in Fagrskinna. Valhalla has inspired various works of art, publication titles, popular culture references, and has become a term synonymous with a martial (or otherwise) hall of the chosen dead.

In this way, Caedmon’s Hymn gives us a sense of the newness of Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon peoples had been converted for only a few generations when this poem was composed.

It is the first example we have of an attempt to express Christian conceptions of creation in native Germanic form. Its use of language tells us much about the interrelationships between English and Latin and between doctrine and poetry.

The poem appears in marginal annotations (written in Old English) to Bede's Latin manuscript of the Ecclesiastical History and in a West Saxon translation of the History as a whole. This fact tells us that it was important in Anglo-Saxon culture as a document of origin.

We learn three things from studying Caedmon’s Hymn.

Caedmon translates Christian concepts into the older vocabulary of creation myth and social rulership.

He uses the forms of oral-formulaic, alliterative English verse to express new Christian ideas.

His poem illustrates the principles of Old English word formation in the compounds, nouns, and repetitions he uses: heofonrices Weard, the warden of the heaven; the Wuldorfæder, father of glory; middangeard = middle yard, or Earth.

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