- "If you want to see a ferry to the other world, come here..."
- — Painting
The Ferry to the Other World is a boat from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Located within the Shadow Temple, the ferry is a giant wooden ship that floats on a river of sorts. A raven statue, which are seen quite often throughout the temple, acts as the figurehead of the ship, and Navi comments that it looks quite old. In the 3DS re-make of the game, the statue is of a hooded, undead, humanoid figure, rather than a raven.
When Link reaches the chamber that the ferry is docked in, he can climb aboard but the ferry will not move. After noticing the Triforce mark painted on deck, Link can stand on it and play "Zelda's Lullaby". When Link does this, the bells will ring, and the Ferry to the Other World will start drifting down the river. After a brief time lapse, Stalfos will appear and start attacking Link. The hero can fight them off, but he is not required to defeat them; when the ship reaches the end of the river, it starts to shake and falls into the abyss, revealing that it was floating on air, and there was no water underneath it; the "water" it was floating on at the start is actually a mist that gives off the illusion of water, and at the end of the ride the mist disappears.
Etymology[]
The Ferry to the Other World is likely named after Charon's ferry from Greek mythology. When the people of Greece died, they were said to arrive in the underworld where they would meet a ferryman named Charon. If they paid Charon the proper fee, he would take them across the river Styx that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. Those who could not pay were left to wander the banks of the river for eternity. Seeing as the Shadow Temple has a general theme of death, it is quite possible that this ferry is based on Charon's ferry, and "Zelda's Lullaby" is metaphorical for paying Charon's fee. This could also be a reference to the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which a skilled musician plays a song to charm Charon into ferrying him across the river, despite him being alive.