No Immortal Inertia: Difference between revisions

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* This is also a recurring theme in the Western fairytales where the protagonist is spirited away into the Fairyland for centuries without realizing or feeling the passage of time. Sometimes they would return to the human world, only to discover that in the meantime year, decades, or even centuries had passed while they hadn't aged. Upon their return, all that missed time would catch up with the victim spectacularly.
* In one fairy tale, a human newly returned from fairlyand has to actually touch the ground for the aging to kick in, presumably because otherwise he hasn't ''really'' returned to the mortal world yet. His fairy wife/girlfriend/whatever lets him return on a horse, warning him not to dismount; inevitably something makes him fall off, of course.
* The Irish tale of [[wikipedia:Oisín|Oisin]] is like this. He is the son of the Irish hero [[Awesome Mc Cool Name McCoolname|Finn Mc CoolMcCool]] and he falls in love with a fairy, who takes him away to Tir na nÓg where each year inside lasts a century outside. When he decides to return to Ireland after three years he is given a horse and told not to touch the ground. 300 years have passed in Ireland and it is now a Christian country. He sees a man trying to lift a stone to build a road and offers to help but he falls of the horse and is transformed into an elderly man. In some versions of the tale he meets St Patrick before dying.
* This is why King Herla of ''[[The Wild Hunt]]'' can't get off his horse. He spent a few centuries at a fairy wedding party. As soon as he gets off of his horse (given to him by the fairies) and sets foot back on the earth of the mortal world, time will catch up and he'll age to death in a matter of seconds.
* Iðunn is the goddess of apples and youth in [[Norse Mythology]]; eating her apples is what keeps the gods young. When she is kidnapped by Þjazi (as recounted in the ''Skáldskaparmál''), the gods become old and grey, apparently fast enough that they quickly notice that Iðunn is missing.
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