According to the side story, which is a different story than that of the game itself, the mask itself was an ancient and dangerous artifact made from the armor of a legendary and evil beast named Majora that was danced to dying exhaustion by a being disguised as a human traveler. According to a legend devised "by the humans themselves", any who obtain the beast's armor gains hold of a great and terrible power. All who approached it, warriors, men and women alike, even with good intentions, were devoured without remorse. The early Terminian tribes used the mask in their cursed hexing rituals, but when the evils caused by the mask became too much to bear, they sealed it away in darkness forever... so they hoped.