During the Nintendo Treehouse Live event last week, in which several upcoming Switch games were showcased, there was a segment dedicated to the Master Set, a special edition, for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This set includes several things, such as the game itself (obviously), the soundtrack of the game, a collectible coin and a Master Sword statue.
Also included in this Master Set is a map of Hyrule. On the flip side of the map is a bunch of Sheikah text, Sheikah being a race within Zelda lore as well as the name of their written language. When one of the Nintendo employees stated, “this actually is telling the legend of Calamity Ganon,” you can bet that a ton of hardcore Zelda fans were eager to try to figure it out. According to Polygon article, YouTuber Zeltik and his crew seem to have done so.
Zeltik and company took a screenshot of the flip side of the map from this presentation for reference, then translated the Sheikah into Japanese, then from Japanese to English. The final translation reads as follows:
Hylians pass stories of a destined time long past where multiple races lived and worked together in harmony. The Sheikah Tribe’s blue aura breathed through the land and this mutual prosperity continued until a cataclysmic disaster stuck. The Hero and the Princess attempted in vain to seal the terror which became known as the Calamity Ganon. Divine Beasts awoke from four directions and deployed a mechanical army which made the King and his people fearful. They fractured Ganon’s power and sealed him… But the Sheikah were banished from the land ever since.
Aside from the text, the flip side of the map features five figures: one in the center and one in each corner. If we assume that the center figure is Calamity Ganon, as the presentation confirmed that the text refers to his legend, then the placement of the four other figures would seem to coincide with the translation of Divine Beasts awaking from four directions. The rest of Zeltik’s video is largely fan speculation about the specifics of how the Sheikah were banished. You can watch the full video below.