The story of Cædmon, the illiterate cowherd who received the gift of song from God, is told in Book Four, Chapter 25 of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It was translated into Old English, probably during the reign of King Alfred the Great, by an anonymous Mercian scholar.

For a complete edition of the Old English Bede, see Thomas Miller, ed., The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Early English Text Society, 95, 96, 110, 111 (London, 1890-98). For an edition of Cædmon's Hymn in West Saxon and Northumbrian versions, see George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (New York, 1931--1953), vol. 6, pp. 105--6.