Majora's Mask (mask)

Majora's Mask is an evil mask that takes control of the Skull Kid in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. It was used in an ancient tribe's hexing rituals and was later sealed away because of its evil magic.

History
Majora's Mask is an accursed item from legend that is said to have been used by an ancient tribe in its hexing rituals. The legend goes on to say that an evil and wicked power comes upon the one who wears the mask. The troubles caused by Majora's Mask were so great that the people of old hid the mask forever, preventing its misuse. The tribe eventually died out, and the true nature of the mask was no longer known.

Story
The Happy Mask Salesman sets out on a quest to find the mask. He goes to great lengths to find the legendary mask and eventually obtains it. As he continues his travels across the world, Skull Kid, who enjoys playing pranks, knocked out the salesman and began looking at his bag of masks. He eventually found Majora's Mask and began wearing it. It took control of him. His personality changed from a child's to a madman's. The mask eventually consumed him entirely, making him evil.

Majora's Mask forces Skull Kid to manipulate the moon. The moon is taken out of its orbit and is set to crash into Termina. Link manages to save the moon from crashing into the world by calling the Four Giants. At this, the mask abandons Skull Kid and brings Link and Tatl into the moon for a battle.

Alternate history
The manga by Akira Himekawa, although not by official Nintendo authors, provides a side story that attempts to explain the origin of the mask.

The manga reveals Majora's Mask to be an ancient and dangerous artifact made from the body armor of a legendary beast named Majora. Majora lived in a land that was not moving, but not dead either, nor had it stopped. According to a myth devised "by the humans themselves," the armour worn by Majora was supposed to grant wishes and hold a great and terrible power. Warriors, adventurers, soldiers, men, and women sought after Majora for his armor, though he killed them all.

After centuries of a solitary existence, a human, disguised as a musician and resembling Fierce Deity, approached Majora, and offered it eternal rest, not by fighting, but by playing music. As the human beat a drum he carried with him, "making time move", Majora began to dance for three days, and on the fourth day, died. All that remained of the beast was his armor.

The human carved Majora's Mask from the armor. By doing so, all of Majora's power was sealed in the mask. The human believed that by creating the mask, his power was no longer a menace. He threw the mask in an abyss and was lost for centuries.

Trivia

 * A puzzling point which was never given an explanation to is as to why the mask would have provided Link with the Fierce Deity's Mask, which allowed Link to easily defeat the maniacal beast. The mysterious sequence in the field (despite being inside the moon) before the final fight also goes unexplained, and the fact that Link obtained his most potent weapon here could imply that the incident was beyond the mask's influence.


 * It is believed that, since the eyes of Majora's Mask are similar to the eye on the Fused Shadow from Twilight Princess that it may have been the Twili who created Majora's Mask, but this is unknown and has never been answered by the makers of Zelda.

Máscara de Majora