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Oldest Poem in English Discovered!

 
 
jespah
 
Reply Sun 17 May, 2026 11:52 am
Recently, researchers were stunned at discovering that, in Rome, there just so happened to be a book which contained the oldest (known!) English language poem. It's called Caedmon's Hymn and it's a nine-line religious text, apparently meant to be sung. See: https://www.wcvb.com/article/rome-medieval-book-oldest-english-poem/71327524

But what if…

What if there was an older poem? Caedmon's Hymn is from the 7th century (that would be 600 - 699 CE* also known as AD), but you can go back to about 450 AD/CE and still have English. See: https://www.oed.com/discover/early-modern-english-an-overview/

Picture, if you will. Siena or what becomes London or wherever you like, 475 CE. Life is short, brutal, and nasty, to quote Thomas Hobbes. The muse of the time decides she's tired of all the ick and time travels to our era.

She picks you to write what will become the oldest English-language poem ever when she travels back to 475 and sticks it in some random illuminated manuscript that will be discovered three months from whichever day you're reading this topic.

So, it's time to write it!

Here's a possible poem ~

There once was a lady with sass
with Dark Ages-style class.
She said to a miller
whose flour was mostly filler,
"I'll get medieval on your ass!"


Note: CE means Common Era and can be used essentially interchangeably with AD (anno domini).
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Type: Discussion • Score: 8 • Views: 692 • Replies: 7
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izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 May, 2026 05:35 am
@jespah,
Caedmon lived a life not that spectacular,
Born and died in Whitby,
A place best known for Dracula.

(Acording to Wikipedia he was a Northumbrian, but Whitby is in Yorkshire, well south of Northumberland.)
0 Replies
 
cmturner
 
  2  
Reply Mon 18 May, 2026 06:03 am
Caedman from Whitby
has lost his key
and cannot hum or sing
very much of anything
0 Replies
 
laughoutlood
 
  1  
Reply Tue 19 May, 2026 02:50 am
Here's one I wrote around 451CE for lute, drum, flute and horn.

Karra immi, ēlon immi—
karra nō gāret,
ēlon nō glennet.

I am a rock I am an island
And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries.



The illiterate cowherd called Cædmon
Sang naught until he was a lay paid man
Fervent monks scribbling in old english pews
Inadvertently formed clerihews
0 Replies
 
roger
 
  1  
Reply Tue 19 May, 2026 05:16 am
@jespah,
Ode to the antiquity of fleas: Adam hadem.
0 Replies
 
eric-with-a-c1967
 
  1  
Reply Fri 22 May, 2026 03:40 am
those are truely beautiful!
0 Replies
 
cmturner
 
  2  
Reply Fri 29 May, 2026 09:05 pm
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I speak English
How about you
0 Replies
 
glitterbag
 
  1  
Reply Sun 31 May, 2026 12:18 am
@jespah,
My Grandmothers favorite poem that she would softly sing to us as we were headed off to sleepy land:

There once was a man from Leeds,
Who swallowed a packet of seeds,
Great tuffs of grass grew out of his %%s,
and his C$%& was covered in weeds.

It was a sweet effort to warn us against doing anything stupid....God bless Grand Ma
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