We can imagine the pious, humble monk listening while another
read and translated to him out of some Latin missal. He would
sit with clasped hands and earnest eyes, intent on understanding.
Then, when he had filled his mind with the sacred story, he would
go away by himself and weave it into song. Perhaps he would walk
about beneath the glowing stars or by the sounding sea, and thank
God that he was no longer dumb, and that at last he could say
forth all that before had been shut within his heart in an agony
of silence. "And," we are told, "his songs and his verse were so
winsome to hear, that his teachers themselves wrote and learned
from his mouth."

"Thus Caedmon, keeping in mind all he heard, and, as it were,
chewing the cud, converted the same into most harmonious verse;
and sweetly repeating the same, made his masters in their turn
his hearers.

"He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all
the history of Genesis; and made many verses on the departure of
the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the
land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ."

As has been said, there are lines in Beowulf which seem to have
been written by a Christian. But all that is Christian in it is
merely of the outside; it could easily be taken away, and the
poem would remain perfect. The whole feeling of the poem is not
Christian, but pagan. So it would seem that what is Christian in
it has been added long after the poem was first made, yet added
before the people had forgotten their pagan ways.