According to [[Bede]], writing in the 7th century, Cædmon was a cow-herd at a Yorkshire [[monastery]], who was unable to sing in public until he miraculously found himself able to sing the ''Creation'', a poem of nine lines. St. [[Hilda of Whitby|Hilda]], the abbess of [[Whitby Abbey]], encouraged his new calling and asked him to join the monastery. The poem we know as "Cædmon's Hymn" was written down by [[Bede]] in Latin in his ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum|Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]''. The Anglo-Saxon version commonly read today is not, in actuality, Cædmon's own work, but comes from an Anglo-Saxon translation of Bede's history made sometime during the reign of St. [[Alfred the Great]].