Minor Works -- 3 - Smith of Wootton Major

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

The same can be said of the Gaelic tale Oisin in Tir na nÓg, when Oisín returns from the Land of the Young after 300 years and has a famous debate with St. Patrick, and Oisín, who becomes ancient and dying once he steps on mortal land, stubbornly refuses to be converted to Catholicism, much to the dismay of Patrick.

One can also see a trace of it in Sir Orfeo. Now, in the Middle English poem time seems to run normally in the Elfking's realm, but Orfeo has spent 10 years wandering the wilderness trying to get there, so that the denouement still has the "nobody recognizes the old man after all these years" vibe, and I have a notion that the Breton tale which underlay it was straight-up "ten-years-passed-in-the-length-of-time-it-took-to-bail-out-his-wife."