Christianity was not so easily adopted in Scandinavia as in some other countries. From the time of the first mission to its ultimate triumph at least two centuries elapsed, and the result might have been still further delayed if it had not been for the example of two royal proselytes, Olaf Trygvason and St. Olaf, who belong to the first half of the eleventh century. With the first introduction of Christianity, the Norse people also received the script which they had found in use in England. The colonisers of Iceland, in the ninth and tenth centuries, carried with them the language and the writing of Scandinavia; and it was probably the remoteness of that island from Norway which has caused the preservation in it, down to the present {51}day, of the old Norse tongue (little modified by age) and the Anglo-Saxon letters of the tenth century. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the influence of North Germany prevailed in time over old national tradition, and the gothic hand of the thirteenth century took the place of the special alphabet. By the time of the Reformation the writing in Scandinavia had been wholly Teutonised (with some exceptions too slight to need mention). The most remarkable part of the change was the exclusion of the _th_ letter from the script of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. This tendency, which had for centuries been in growth, had the remarkable effect of practically confining the old Norse literature to Iceland, and of making it the apparent home of all the poems and Sagas which Norway had produced. It was at least the home of most of the literary men who in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries wrote for the delight of their kinsmen, in both Norway and Iceland. The great literary activity in Iceland, at that time and afterwards, produced a large quantity of MSS., usually written on vellum, and rudely decorated with painted initials; but of those which remained in the country most have perished. A relatively considerable number were, however, carried to Denmark in the sixteenth and later centuries, and have been preserved in museums. Very few yet remain in circulation, unsecured by public appropriation. _The Slavonic Alphabet_