CAEDMON LEARNS TO SING

Characters:
Caedmon​ - Shane
Angel​ - Antoinette
St. Hilda of Whitby​ - Orla
Narrator - ​Margaux
Cattle Herders - ​Everyone else

Props/Materials:
● Brick bg
● Harp
● Statue
● Cattle
● Chandelier thingy
● Candles
● Speaker

Flow:
Preparation and setting of the mood - 10 mins.
Intro - 2 mins.
Presentation - 30 mins.
Wrap-up/ Summary - 15 mins.
TOTAL: 47 mins.

Script (Draft):

INTRO
Narrator: Good afternoon everyone! We are the first group, Team Targaryen.
Today, we will be presenting the story of Caedmon - his life, most especially how he
learned to sing. So without further ado, we bring you: Caedmon Learns to Sing.
*shows visual aid with title*
FIRST SCENE
Narrator: ​Caedmon was an illiterate cattle herder.

*Caedmon and cattle enter*

Every night, all the cattle herders gather in a circle to praise God, dance and sing
songs about stories in the Bible or any song they learned that was passed on to
them.

*everyone gathers in a circle except the angel and St., everyone sings and
Caedmon goes to sleep*

*all cattle herders take turns in singing, 1 min. each (pwede pud longer para
mutaas ang oras hehe)*

*pag abot kang Caedmon kay nag make excuse tas niuli tas natulog*

However, when it’s Caedmon’s turn, he always comes up with excuses to leave and
avoid singing.

ANGEL SCENE
Narrator: ​One night, Caedmon kept hearing tunes and saw an angel in his dream…

*Angel enters and hums tunes similar sa Caedmon’s hymn*

Angel: ​Caedmon, why don’t you sing?

Caedmon: ​I am illiterate unlike the others. I can’t sing or even come up with a song
or tune.
Angel: ​Sing for me. Just sing.
Caedmon: ​What shall I sing about?
Angel:​ Sing to me about the Creation of the World.
*Caedmon wakes up and hums Caedmon’s hymn*

*Next gathering kay same sa first scene pero this time nakakanta na si
Caedmon, dapat tanan sa circle na shock charot*

CAEDMON BECOMES A MONK

Narrator: ​Everyone was so impressed, that St. Hilda, the abbess of Whitby called
upon Caedmon.
St. Hilda: ​Caedmon, you have impressed me so much. What do you think of
becoming a monk?
Narrator: ​But before that, she gave Caedmon a passage of sacred history/doctrine
and gave him a commission to create a poem based on the passage she gave. The
next day, Caedmon returned with his poem and was invited to take monastic vows.

*Caedmon recites vows*

DEATH OF CAEDMON
Narrator: According to Bede, Caedmon’s death occurred about the same time as
the fire of Coldingham Abbey. In 1898, Caedmon’s cross was erected in his honor in
the graveyard of St. Mary’s Church in Whitby. Engraved on it: To the glory of God
and in memory of Caedmon the father of English Sacred Song, fall asleep hard by
680.
CAEDMON LEARNS TO SING (SUMMARY)
House Targaryen, BA ELS - 1B

WHO: Caedmon is the earliest Northumbrian poet. He is a cattle herder and an

Anglo-Saxon, who later became a zealous monk.

WHAT:
1. First Northumbrian poet
2. Composed Caedmon’s Hymn which is about the creation of the world

LINGUISTIC FEATURES
Old English was the vernacular spoken and written in England from the period of the
Anglo-Saxon settlements in the sixth century until the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Like Latin, they had a highly developed inectional system. Nouns were classed
according to declensions (where sufxes signaled case, number, and grammatical
gender); verbs were classed according to sets of conjugations (where sufxes
signaled person, number, and tense). But the Germanic languages shared distinctive
ways of creating new words and a grammatical system unique among other
European tongues. And each individual Germanic language had its own system of
pronunciation. Old English shared with its Germanic compeers a system of word
formation that built up compounds out of preexisting elements. Nouns could be
joined with other nouns, adjectives, or prexes to form new words. Verbs could be
compounded with prexes or nouns to denote shades of meaning.

Example:​ timber + prefix “be” = ​betimber​ (“to build”)

spider: ​gangelwæfre​ (“the walking weaver”)

Old English poetry is rife with such noun compounds, known as “kennings.” Poets
called the sea the ​hron-rad (the road of the whale), or the ​swan-rad (the road of the
swan). The body was the ​ban-loca (the bone locker). When Anglo-Saxon writers
needed to translate a word from classical or church Latin, say, they would build up
new compounds based on the elements of that Latin word.

Example: ​grammatica - ​tæf-cræft

superbia - ​ofer-mod
baptiserium - ​ful-wiht

Old English also shared with the other Germanic languages a system of grammar.
All of the other ancient European languages—Greek, Latin, Celtic—could form verb
tenses by adding sufxes to verb roots.
Example: ​In Latin, for example, you could say “I love” in the present tense (amo),
and “I will love” in the future (amabo). In the Germanic languages, as in modern
English, you would need a separate or helping verb to form the future tense. In Old
English, “I love” would be ​Ic luge.​ But for the future tense, you would have to say, ​Ic
sceal luan.​

Old English had in particular was its own, distinctive sound. Old English had a set of
consonant clusters, many of which have been lost or simplied in later forms of the
language. Thus the initial cluster fn-, as in the word ​fnastian (“sneeze”), has become
sn-. Initial hw- (as in ​hwæt)​ has become wh- (“what”). Initial hl- (as in ​hlud)​ has
become simply l- (“loud”). Initial hr- (​hring​) has become r- (“ring”).

WHERE:
Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire

WHEN:
657–680AD

WHY:  
He took the traditional Germanic habits of word formation, the grammar, and the
sound of his own Old English and used them as the basis for translating Christian
concepts into the Anglo-Saxon vernacular. England had only recently been
converted to Christianity by the time Caedmon composed his Hymn (missionaries
had arrived in the sixth century; monasteries were well established by the middle of
the seventh). The older Germanic poetic forms of expression—shaped to pagan
myth and earthly experience—had to be adapted for the new faith.

HOW: (The presentation itself)

Caedmon, an illiterate herdsman, retired from company one night in shame because
he could not comply with the demand made of each guest to sing. Then in a dream
an angel appeared commanding him to sing the creation of the world, and the
herdsman found himself uttering “verses which he had never heard.” When
Caedmon awoke he related his dream to the farm bailiff under whom he worked and
was conducted by him to the monastery at Streaneshalch (now called Whitby). The
abbess St. Hilda believed that Caedmon was divinely inspired and, to test his
powers, proposed that he should render into verse a portion of sacred history, which
the monks explained. By the following morning he had fulfilled the task. At the
request of the abbess he became an inmate of the monastery. Throughout the
remainder of his life his more learned brethren expounded Scripture to him, and all
that he heard he reproduced in vernacular poetry.