It happens that we still possess some poems which answer more or less
to this description; but they are all of later date and are only known
from copies written in the Southern dialect of Wessex; and, as the
original Northumbrian text has unfortunately perished, we have no
means of knowing to what extent they represent C{ae}dmon's work. It is
possible that they preserve some of it in a more or less close form of
translation, but we cannot verify this possibility. It has been
ascertained, on the other hand, that a certain portion (but by no
means all) of these poems is adapted, with but slight change,
from an original poem written in the Old Saxon of the continent.
Nevertheless, it so happens that a short hymn of nine lines has been
preserved nearly in the original form, as C{ae}dmon dictated it; and it
corresponds closely with Beda's Latin version. It is found at the end
of the Cambridge MS. of Beda's _Historia Ecclesiastica_ in the
following form:
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
metud{ae}s maecti end his modgidanc,
uerc uuldurfadur; sue he uundra gihuaes,
eci Dryctin, or astelid{ae}.
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