Different Myths Data Acquisition from www.Google.com

1. The Hyrulian Pantheon: The Minor
Gods
Posted on May 16, 2012 by The Wolfess
In every pantheon there are many tiers or levels
of gods based on power and importance.
Besides the major gods, there are many others.
The Greeks had a god for practically everything.
Not all of them were important enough to live on
Mount Olympus, and some that did live on
Olympus weren’t all that important. Take
Hephaestus for example, the deformed god of
the forge. Hera threw him off of Olympus when
he was born because he was hideous, but Zeus
brought him back to make lightning bolts for him.
He was around Olympus, but I don’t think any of
us would consider him a major god. There is no

2. way that we can compare him to his siblings, like
Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom, who
burst from Zeus’s head …..
Perhaps a better parallel from Greek mythology
to the minor deities we see in Hyrulian
mythology would be the “underling-gods” of the
major Olympian Gods. For example, Poseidon
was the Olympian god of the sea, definitely a
major God. Under him were a host of other less
important gods. For example, there was
Aegaeon, the god of violent sea storms, or Ceto,
goddess of the dangers of the ocean and of sea
monsters. Below them there are “Demi-God” like
beings, often referred to as “the son of Poseidon
by ….” or “the daughter of Poseidon by…” and
then sea monsters that act like guardians of the
sea, and lastly simple sea spirits, like the sirens
or the mermaids. These other categories will be
discussed in more depth in later chapters of this
series.
The Norse people had twelve major gods,
including all of the gods listed in the previous
chapters. Below them, however, there were also
minor gods, though not as many in number as

3. the Greek Minor Gods. Some examples are
Ran, Keeper of the Drowned, or Honir, the silent
god known for indecisiveness. Deities below
them in the Norse pantheon are Light Elves and
Dark Elves (also called Dwarves), the Giants
and other mystical creatures, and then spirits,
which are more personifications of concepts
than creatures. Again, more on this in later
chapters.
We don’t know the names of many of the
Hyrulian minor gods, not because those names
don’t exist but because they’re not central
enough to the “myths” (the games) to warrant
naming. Like the Three Golden Goddesses, the
minor gods are almost never seen in the world
itself. They, too, are most likely absent from the
world and worshipped in their absence.
First, we will talk about the most important of the
minor gods, the two we do have names for and
see in Majora’s Mask. Despite being a parallel
world, Termina is still a part of the Hyrulian
worldview (as discussed in the Cosmology
article) and it is still one of the stories of which
the people speak, if we are looking at the games

4. as a collection of myths. These two characters
straddle the line between major and minor gods.
After we talk about them, we will move on to the
nameless gods and goddesses we see
throughout the Hyrulian myths.
Majora
In the introduction, we talked about the moon
god and sun goddess archetypes seen
throughout world mythologies, and I claimed that
the Fierce Deity is the spirit of the moon, and
Majora is the spirit of the sun. From there, it is
easy to interpret them as minor gods instead of

5. merely spirits. However, in order to discuss them
as gods, I first need to lay out evidence for their
associations. In regards to Majora, I am arguing
that Majora is female, and that she represents
the sun enough to be considered a sun
goddess.
I have three major points to support the
hypothesis that Majora is the incarnation, or
spirit, of the sun. The first point dovetails nicely
with something I should establish first, and that
is Majora’s gender. The most obvious detail
listed by fans of this theory is that when the
mask sprouts limbs and a head, the eyes of the
mask are situated on the chest of the new
creature. Though they do not protrude, their
design suggests female breasts.
The eyes of the mask are simple. They are
orangish-yellow, much like the sun, and consist
of an outer circle with a simple dot in the middle.
A little known fact about this is that that symbol,
depicted below, was originally the Egyptian
symbol for their major god Ra, a sun god.
Today, it is used by astronomers as shorthand
for the sun in research writing. Likewise, they

6. use a familiar symbol to represent the moon: a
crescent moon, also depicted below.
The symbols used by astronomers for the Sun
and the Moon
Now where have we seen these before? How
about on the chests of Majora and Fierce Deity,
respectively, during the final battle? They are
literally labeled with the scientific symbols for
sun and moon. Now, this fact and the color of
Majora’s eyes/breasts are circumstantial
evidence. It is, nonetheless, a simple
observation and my first point.
Before going into the next point, it’s important to
finish establishing Majora’s gender. Beyond the
remarkable resemblance to breasts, Majora’s
voice is feminine. It’s not just the high-pitched
voice of a young boy or young man in a video
game, it’s literally the voice of a woman. Listen
to her voice in the following youtube video of

7. Majora’s Wrath. While you do, please pay
special attention to the way that Majora’s Wrath
dances. She lifts up on her toe with one leg
crooked and she spins, much like a ballerina
with long ribbons in her hands might spin.
Again, look for Majora’s ballerina-like dancing
and listen for her high pitched vocal sounds:
Skull Kid may have been male, but Majora
herself is most definitely female. Now that the
pronoun usage is explained, let’s move on to
what really matters.
The second point has to do with color. Majora’s
color scheme is bright and glaring, dominated by
harsh purples and reds. When Skull Kid uses
the power of the mask to cast spells, Majora’s
power radiates from the mask in a circular
beam, like it was emitting sunlight. The boss
room Majora takes the hero to for their final
battle is filled with a rainbow of color. I’m sure
some of you scientifically-inclined Zelda fans
already know about the relationship between

8. light and color, but for those of you who don’t let
me give you a quick lesson.
Skull Kid casting a spell.
Sunlight radiates from the sun in waves. Within
these rays of sunlight, also called white light, are
specific rays including every color in existence.
Color is actually contained in the light itself.
What this means is that no item on earth actually
has its own color. An apple looks red because it
reflects the red wave in the sunlight. A tree’s
leaves are green in summer because it reflects

9. the green wave. In order for something to look
white, it has to reflect all of the colors waves in
the sunlight (hence why sunlight is white). In
order for something to look black, it has to not
reflect any of the waves in the sunlight.
Without sunlight, color wouldn’t exist. Try this:
go into a room with no windows, preferably at
night. Wait until your eyes adjust, which they
usually will after a while. This will even work in
rooms with curtains at night. Once your eyes
have adjusted, look around and honestly try to
pick out specific colors. You can’t. Without
sunlight (or moonlight, as the light of the moon is
merely reflected sunlight) encountering the items
they don’t appear to have color. Your mind may
try to pin a color on it because it knows what
color it SHOULD be, but if you really look
honestly all you will see is shades of gray and
black.

10. This is
interesting in two respects. The relationship
between the sun and color is fascinating. Color
is in the sun’s light, not in the world. Therefore,
the fact that Majora is so strongly associated
with the sun is important. Also, note that the
moon has no light of its own. What light the
moon gives is reflected light from the sun, like
one gigantic round mirror. If Majora is the sun,
how interesting is it that the sun gives Link the
key to exposing the moon? By putting on the
mask received from Majora, the moon can finally
be seen through Link. In a way, Majora gives
Fierce Deity his spotlight.
This moon connection can also be seen in the
color issue. Just as the moon is white
surrounded by black, so Fierce Deity is white

11. and black. The eyes of Fierce Deity have no
pigment or pupil. His hair is white. His tunic,
though often interpreted as light blue, is also
often thought to be white. His armor is silver and
his leggings and undershirt are black. The only
color on the Fierce Deity, in fact, is the war paint
on his face, armor, and gauntlets. Other than
that he, like the moon itself, is nothing but white
and black. Without pigment of its own.
Still not convinced that Majora is the sun? Let us
look at Majora’s temple, the Stone Tower
Temple. For more information on the Stone
Tower Temple and Majora, please see Hylian
Dan’s “The Message of Majora’s Mask”.
Seriously, if you haven’t read it, go read it now.
Right now. Your life is incomplete and you didn’t
even know it. You see, Hylian Dan brilliantly
explores the Stone Tower Temple, and he
comes to the substantiated conclusion that the
architecture in the temple indicated that it was
used to worship the mask, among other things.
Take a look at this famous image below:

12. If that isn’t one gargantuan sculpture of Majora’s
Mask, then I don’t know what is. The mask can
also be seen carved into the pillars in the boss
room of the temple. This room is actually a giant
desert, where the light of the sun beats down on
the land …. When we think desert, we think hot,
unforgiving sunlight. It’s noteworthy to observe

13. that this sun-filled, Majora-decorated place is in
the heart of Stone Tower Temple.
The desert boss room of the Stone Tower
Temple
The key to Majora’s temple is light. Sunlight, to
be specific. Most of the puzzles involve
reflecting sunlight onto objects, and the light
arrows (which contain concentrated sunlight) are
obtained and primarily used here. The key
puzzle of the temple involves inverting the
natural roles of the sky and the earth, placing an
inverted sun and moon under your feet. The
whole temple is actually decorated with suns.
Take a look at the doors in the temple, for
goodness sake.

14. Inverted suns decorate the doors in the Stone
Tower Temple.
And if you’re not convinced by the sun and
moon symbols, the color schemes or science of
color, or the multitude of sun-related elements
littering the Stone Tower Temple, then I have
one last nail in the coffin for you. Let’s go back
to that rainbow-colored boss room. Look at the
following picture of the beginning of the fight and
tell me what you see.

15. The centerpiece of the final boss room.
A sun. The centerpiece of the boss room design
is a large, rainbow-colored sun. Not only that,
but Majora’s Mask itself is mounted in the center
of that sun. When the battle begins, it detaches
itself from the wall and emerges out of the sun to
fight us. Developers don’t get much more direct
than that folks. Majora represents the sun itself,
and she is the sun goddess of Hyrulian
mythology.
What I find to be most interesting about Majora
is her trickster nature. As I said in the
introduction, Majora fits this archetype to a T. It

16. makes sense that Majora would be the trickster
and female due to the dominance of females in
the Hyrulian pantheon. They are definitely a
matriarchal society, as we rarely see a King of
Hyrule with more power than Princess Zelda,
and almost all pantheons accurately represent
the patriarchal or matriarchal nature of the
society that created it. If men rule your society,
they will rule your gods as well. Vice versa, if
women rule your society then they will rule your
goddesses.
However, I think what Wikipedia notes about
trickster figures in mythology is very telling on
this subject:
“Frequently the trickster figure exhibits gender
and form variability, changing gender roles and
even occasionally engaging in same-sex
practices. Such figures appear in Native
American and First Nations mythologies, where
they are said to have a two-spirit nature. Loki,
the Norse trickster, also exhibits gender
variability, in one case even becoming pregnant;
interestingly, he shares the ability to change
genders with Odin, the chief Norse deity who

17. also possesses many characteristics of the
Trickster.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
As you can
gather from this quote, Loki is the trickster in
Norse mythology. He is very like Majora in his
ability to change forms. Also, though he is
sometimes merely tricky, he later becomes
borderline evil and malicious. When Skull Kid,
possessed by Majora’s Mask, started out he
merely played pranks. As he went on, the
pranks became more and more malicious. When
he nearly caused the destruction of the world,
the moon god, Fierce Deity, had to step in to
keep the sun goddess, Majora, in line. There will
be a further discussion of Skull Kid in the
seventh article on spirits, as this immortal
creature may be a better candidate for the
trickster role than even Majora.

18. One last thing of note, in respect to sun deities
and Majora’s Mask there is a common myth
found in almost all mythologies: the myth of the
dying or missing sun. These myths are used to
explain a variety of solar activities, including why
the sun disappears every night (Apollo’s Chariot
vs. Artemis’ Chariot), shorter days in the winter,
and Solar Eclipses.
A solar eclipse is when the moon covers the sun
during the day for a period of time. If we are
treating Majora’s Mask as a myth, Majora as a
sun goddess, and Fierce Deity as a moon god,
then this is clearly a Hyrulian missing sun story
created to explain solar eclipses. What else was
the moon doing than covering the sun? There is
a lot more to it than that, but compare it to a
similar Japanese myth about the Goddess
Amaterasu.

19. Loki’s wolves pursue the sun goddess and the
moon god.
Amaterasu, a sun goddess, hid in a cave
because she was frightened by the behavior of
her brother, Susanoo, a moon god. The world is
plunged into darkness until she is willing to
emerge. This myth is explaining a solar eclipse,
but has to do with the bad behavior of one
causing a reaction from the other. In Hyrulian
mythology, the sun goddess takes control of the

20. moon god and forces him to fall, covering the
sun in the process. Only with the help of the
Hyrulian culture hero, Link, is the moon god
freed from the power of the sun goddess and
return to his rightful place in the sky.
The Fierce Deity
Having established that Majora is the sun
goddess, it is not difficult to make a claim for
Fierce Deity as the moon god. We’ve already
explored the symbol on his armor and his color
scheme (or lack thereof). We went over how just
as the sun gives its light to the moon so that we
can see it, in the same way Majora gives Fierce

21. Deity the “spotlight” by giving the Fierce Deity
mask to Link. Lastly, we looked at Majora’s
Mask as a Hyrulian missing sun story used to
explain solar eclipses.
There are many theories about the true nature of
the popular Fierce Deity Mask given to Link by
Majora herself. This mask bears a striking
resemblance to Link, and is very powerful. Tatl
wonders if it could be more evil than Majora, and
Majora calls it the “true bad guy”. However,
Hylian Dan’s legendary article gives another,
more positive meaning for the Fierce Deity
Mask: a mask representing all that Link has
learned in gaining the other masks, full of hope
and promise. This reading would seem to be
collaborated by a gossip stone in Majora’s Mask
that says: “The Fierce Deity Mask, a mask that
contains the merits of all masks, seems to be…
somewhere in this world…”
Despite the factors we have already covered,
the biggest case for Fierce Deity’s godhood
rests in Majora through an important aspect of
the Hyrulian worldview. Hyrule is about balance,
just as its goddesses are. That is what they

22. believe in on the most basic of levels. If we look
at the story about Termina in this light, we notice
that even Termina has balance in everything.
For the Sonata of Awakening, we have the
Goron’s Lullaby. For the New Wave Bossa
Nova, a song of birth, we have the Elegy of
Emptiness, a song of death.
Snowhead is getting colder, and Great Bay has
warmed up. Poison in the swamp is killing all
life, and the dead are rising from their graves in
Ikana. Even the masks themselves have
opposites. The postman’s hat is one of freedom,
and the Gibdo’s Mask is a mask of confinement.
The Couple’s Mask is a mask of happiness, and
the Circus Leader’s Mask is one of terrible
sadness.
What we’re getting at is the fact that for
everything, there is its opposite. Therefore, for
Majora, a being representing the sun itself, there
is her opposite: the Fierce Deity. Where she is
colorful, he is without pigment. Where she is
female, he is male. Where her mask possesses
the wearer, his mask lends its strength. Where
she is associated with the sun, he is the moon.

23. Let’s look at Fierce Deity’s relationship with the
moon. First, we know that the Fierce Deity mask
is a transformation mask. Other than the Giant’s
Mask, which is more of an enlargement of your
current form than a true transformation anyway,
every transformation mask in the game is
created by healing the soul of a troubled or
dying person. So whose soul is in the Fierce
Deity mask, and how did it get there? I and
others will argue that it is the moon itself.
The Fierce Deity mask is
obtained inside the moon. The moon has been
unnaturally forced down by Majora, but for some
reason it doesn’t just hurtle into the earth and
destroy it in one quick swoop, despite its size. It
is as if the moon is resisting, like it doesn’t want

24. to destroy earth. This is supported by the fact
that a tear falls from the moon’s eye, a rare
occurrence we are told. It is mourning what’s
happening. The creepy eyes we see in its face
are identical to Majora’s eyes, and we do not
hear it speak until Majora’s Mask enters into the
moon and those unnatural eyes light up. The
voice speaking is the voice of the creature
possessing the moon, Majora, not the voice of
the moon itself.
All of this shows that the moon is a sentient
being on some level. It has consciousness
enough to mourn and cry over the fate of the
land, consciousness enough to resist Majora’s
power. In the long run, however, the sun is much
bigger than the moon, and has much more
power.
When we eventually leave the inside of the
moon, the Happy Mask Salesman says that we
have a great many masks full of happiness. This
indicates that Link still has his masks when he
leaves the moon. What happens in the moon
happens in a spiritual realm, on some level, or
perhaps inside the moon’s consciousness. It is
possible to view the events there as Link

25. entering the moon’s mind in order to eradicate
the demon that has entered it and possessed it.
What we find inside of the moon, then, is caused
by the moon himself and not by Majora.
Once we enter the moon, we find ourselves on a
serene plain. In order to get the Fierce Deity
Mask, you have to have obtained and then given
away all of the other masks in the game to the
four children running around the tree. They each
wear one of the four masks obtained in the four
corners of Termina, representing the fate that
each of those lands faced before Link helped
them. Perhaps these children show the moon’s
guilt. It feels like it cannot resist the power of the
sun and by that failure it has caused these
things to happen. Its powerlessness has caused
the imminent destruction of the earth over which
it foresees.
By giving masks to these projections of the
moon, Link proves to it that he has helped the
world, and he can help the moon himself. Link
moves on to the center child, the one wearing
Majora’s Mask. This child represents the part of
the moon that is possessed by Majora. Link has

26. healed the moon’s spirit by giving the masks to
the four children, and so the mask containing the
moon’s spirit is created. Majora, the sun,
working through what foothold she has left on
the moon’s phyche, gives the mask with the
moon’s spirit to Link so that she can regain
control of the moon by defeating Link and the
mask. However, Fierce Deity, the moon, easily
overcomes the sun on its own territory and
returns to the sky.
Fierce Deity (the moon) and Majora (the sun)
battle.

27. I think that all of this fits perfectly from a
mythological standpoint. Most often, as I said
before, moon gods are male (with the notable
exceptions of Roman and Greek mythology,
which even then used to be opposite in the early
Greek Myths) and sun goddesses are female.
This is true in Norse mythology, Japanese
Mythology, early Egyptian mythology, and early
Greek mythology. Lithuania, Finn, Inia, Sri
Lanka, the Hittites, the Babylonians, and some
Native American tribes (including the Cherokee,
the Natchez, Inuit, and Miwok tribes) all have
female solar goddesses and male lunar gods.
Fierce Deity also fits with the
archetypal hero-god. Thor is the hero-god in
Norse mythology, and the favorite of the people.
He is a strong, strapping young man with a

28. huge, famous hammer who keeps Loki and the
powers of evil at bay. He is the god of thunder
and battle, associated with the sky. Thor is
second only to Odin, but was more popular
among the people than Odin was.
Fierce Deity fits this perfectly—with his
trademark huge helix sword, he is armor-clad
and fearsome, but depicted in the Majora’s Mask
myth as being a hero. A dangerously powerful
hero, but aren’t all gods very dangerous on one
level? I would say that Fierce Deity is not only
the god of the moon, he is also the god of battle
and the hero-god of Hyrulian mythology.
The Goddess of Sand

29. The Goddess of Sand is the first in our
discussion of nameless minor gods of Hyrulian
mythology. We see her likeness depicted in
statues but not her physical self, much like the
statue of the goddess in Skyward Sword. We
also never see the Three Golden Goddesses
outside of cut scenes, but we do see statue
representations of them. Because we are Hylian
in the myths and not Gerudo, we do not hear

30. legends about the goddess of sand as they
would have when they were young.
Some may argue that she is a Gerudo god and
not a Hyrulian god because the Gerudo are
separate from Hyrule and have a king of their
own. I would argue that so do all the other races.
The Zora have King Zora, the Gorons have their
Big Brother Darunia, the Kokiri have the Great
Deku Tree (or Deku Tree sprout), and so on and
so forth. Greek culture was the same way. They
were all independent governments with their
own kings, laws, and patron gods united under
one banner. For example, in Greece the
Spartans worshiped Ares, the god of war, and
were very battle-hardened, war-bent people.
Athens worshiped Athena, the goddess of
wisdom, and was known for its great works of art
and knowledge. Athens and Sparta were equals,
with their own kings, gods, and different
philosophies, but they were also both Greek.
Sometimes the citystates fought among
themselves, especially Athens and Sparta, but
eventually they became united. In Ocarina of
Time we are told about a time when the country
was at war within itself. It is described as a time

31. “before the King of Hyrule united the world”
(OoT), and at the beginning of Ocarina of Time
we see the King of the Gerudo citystate pledging
allegiance to Hyrule. The other races have
already done this, and the country of Hyrule has
been sealed as one. That’s why in both Ocarina
of Time and Twilight Princess, the places where
the other races live with their kings are not
marked on the map as separate countries. They
are shown as a part of Hyrule, where these
other races live and pay homage to the
king/queen of Hyrule.
This is important when including the Goddess of
Sand as a part of Hyrulian mythology. The
Gerudo, though their own citystate, are
Hyrulians too. That is why one of the six temples
scattered throughout the land of Hyrule lies in
the heart of the Gerudo Desert, is guarded and
built by Gerudo masons, and depicts the patron
goddess of the Gerudo. This is not indicative of
another country, but of a citystate-like system of
government, and therefore the Goddess of Sand
is included as a Hyrulian Goddess.
Basically, all we have of her are a few statues.

32. In Ocarina of Time, she is shown with a snake
wrapped around her body. One might guess that
she is part snake somehow, or able to turn into
one. Perhaps she has a pet snake that is closely
associated with her. In Twilight Princess, she is
shown holding fire as well as with a snake
wrapped around her body. By the time the
Arbiter’s Grounds had been built it is possible
that she was becoming more associated with
Din as the Gerudo race and culture faded from
the land and Hylians tried to adopt her into their
main pantheon.
The Goddess of Time

33. The popular thought is that Nayru or Farore is
the Goddess of Time, however neither goddess
is a perfect fit and she is not named. When
Majora’s Mask first mentions the Goddess of
Time, Zelda says that she is watching over him.
Throughout the journey she gives Link new time
related abilities using his Ocarina of Time to
slow time, speed up time, skip whole chunks of
time, and even to reset time. Perhaps she is his
patron goddess.
In Skyward Sword, we learn more about her, but

34. that is a spoiler and will be discussed in more
detail in the ninth chapter of this series.
The Goddess of Spirits
Seen on an island in Phantom Hourglass, the
Goddess of Spirits presides over mystical spirits
and their powers. In the game, she is able to
help the three spirits traveling with Link regain
their memories and their powers. There is no
other information about her, and we never see
her physical representation.
The Goddess of Fortune
The Goddess of Fortune is mentioned by some
of the people in the Wind Waker as living on an
island in the ocean. When Link clears the rubble
blocking her spring, she thanks him with a larger
wallet. Little else is known about her.
The Goddess of Wind
The Goddess of Wind is briefly mentioned by
people in the Wind Waker, but we do not see
more about her. Some fans believe that she may

35. be Farore because of the association with the
spell Farore’s Wind, but it is just as likely for
Nayru to be the Goddess of Wind due to her
status as the sky goddess of Hyrulian
mythology. Along those lines, it is also possible
that Nayru is the Hyrulian goddess of love
because of the spell Nayru’s Love, but again
there is no real evidence for this.
The Mountain God
This goddess is worshiped by the Goron people
in Spirit Tracks, where Kagoron prays for his
people at her alter atop the Mountain of Fire as
they face the erupting volcano. They believe that
she, in her anger, is causing the volcano to
erupt. Some fans suspect that this could be the
Goddess Din because of her association with
the earth and fire.
PREVIEW OF ARTICLE 5:
Now that we have examined the minor deities of
the Hyrulian pantheon, it is time to look at the
beings that are just above being a guardian and
just below being a full goddess. The common
term for this is Demi-God, as they are often seen

36. as getting god-like powers or immortality either
from being descended from a god, or through
some other divine means.
Author: The Wolfess
Jennie Marie, also called The Wolfess, is getting her
Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry at Eastern Washington
University. She is the author of a three-book Zelda
fan fiction, The Doppelganger Trilogy and does
freelance articles for Zelda websites. The Wolfess
has written such articles as Zelda Wii Needs An
Anti-Hero, Skyward Sword’s Art Style:
Straddling the Line or Walking a New Path, and a
ten-part series on The Hyrulian Pantheon currently
running at ZeldaDungeon.net.