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ynewulf, while one of only four Anglo Saxon poets with work still in existence, was a prolific poet with literally thousands of known lines of verse.  These verses reveal much about the attitudes of the Anglo Saxon peoples as well as its Church as the poet takes existing Latin stories and paints a different, more vibrantly colorful interpretation of the people, the events and the faith.

As records verifying Cynewulf’s identity do not exist, it is an analysis of his most famous work, Elene, which appears in the Vercelli and Exeter manuscripts that provides a key clue to Cynewulf’s origin. 

Cynewulf himself remains largely a mystery, with little more than conjecture about his life.  One of the ecclesiastical poets of the period, was Cynewulf the same person as the Bishop of Lindisfarne?