OK, this extract is from Jacques Vallee's `Dimensions', when he was taking his investigations in a different direction. It's still interesting though.
QUOTE
Strangely enough, we again find the identical theme in ages-old Chinese folklore. Witness the story of Wang Chih, one of the holy men of the Taoists.
One day, as Wang Chih wandered through the mountains of Ku Chow gathering firewood, he saw a grotto where some old men were playing chess. He came in to watch their game and laid down his ax. One of the old men gave him something like a date-stone and instructed him to place it in his mouth. "No sooner had he done so than hunger and thirst passed away." Some time later, one of the aged players told him, "It is long since you came here; you should go home now." But as he turned to pick up his ax, Wang Chih found that the handle had turned into dust. He reached the valley, but found not hours or days but centuries had passed, and nothing remained of the world as he had known it.
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A similar tradition exists in Denmark. In a tale which is typical of the pattern, a bride thoughtlessly walked through the fields during the festivities of her wedding day and passed a mound "where the elves were making merry." (Again, we have here a description of the Little People close to the magical object sometimes described as a large, flat, round table, sometimes as a hillock. A disk or a large cone resting on the ground would fit that description. In describing the fairy knoll, Hartland writes: "The hillock was standing, as is usual on such occasions, on red pillars!") The "wee folk" offered the bride a cup of wine, and she joined in a dance with them. Then she hastened back home, where she could not find her family. Everything had changed in the village. Finally, on hearing her cries, a very old woman exclaimed: "Was it you, then, who disappeared at my grandfather's brother's wedding, a hundred years ago?" At these words, the poor girl fell down and expired.
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It is fascinating indeed to find such tales, which antedate Einstein's and Langevin's relativistic traveler by centuries. The supernatural lapse of time in Magonia is often allied to the theme of love between the abducted human and one of the beings.
Such is the pattern of the story of Ossian, or Oisin. Once, when he was young man, Oisin fell asleep under a tree. He woke up suddenly and found a richly dressed lady "of more than mortal beauty" looking at him. She was the queen of the legendary land of Tir na n'Og, and she invited him to share her palace. Oisin and the queen were in love and happy, but the hero was warned not to go into the palace gardens or to stand on a certain flat stone. Naturally, he transgressed the order, and, when he stood upon the stone, he beheld his native land, suffering from oppression and violence. He went to the queen and told her he must return. "How long do you think you have been with me?" she asked. "Thrice seven days," said he. "Thrice seven years," was the answer. But he still wanted to go back. She then gave him a black horse from whose back he must not alight during his trip in the other world, for fear of seeing the power of time suddenly fall on him. But he forgot the warning when an incident induced him to dismount, and at once he became a feeble, blind, and helpless old man.
ENDQUOTE
Many folk have noticed, over the decades and centuries, the same world-wide traditional pattern of clever, time-shifting folk (who live "under the hill") who possessed high-tech (`magic') and had an ambiguous attitude toward us ordinary humans. [Native Americans have `creation' or `entry' myths which say they found, on arrival in the country, resident non-Asians (some red-haired, all long-headed) who they called `magicians' and who lived in solid (rock/brick?) dwellings but eventually disappeared - many thousands of years ago.]
Ray