Earliest known English Christian poet. According to the Northumbrian historian Bede, when Caedmon was a cowherd at the monastery of Whitby, he was commanded to sing by a stranger in a dream, and on waking produced a hymn on the Creation. The poem is preserved in some manuscripts. Caedmon became a monk and may have composed other religious poems.
The crescent is a symbol of Islam and the green also denotes Islam. The four stars and the four stripes of colour represent the four islands in the group (including Mayotte, which is a French dependency). Effective date: 2002.