These stories stayed in the oral tradition because the Irish had not been invaded at the time like surrounding countries. In conjunction, the druidic schools wanted to maintain the stories in verbal form. This kept the stories in circulation to the culture and public. When Christian scribes came to Ireland, they wrote down the stories in Latin. Unfortunately, in succeeding centuries many of the texts were lost or destroyed during Viking raids. The remaining texts were rerecorded in manuscripts in the 11th and 12th century. Though previous manuscripts were are dated to 3-4 centuries earlier in the Irish language.