That makes sense, though you would have to eliminate time travel from the equation to accomodate that theory. If you do that then there's no use in calling him the Hero of Time, right? Time travel is taken out because it wasn't used, you said that it happens over again the exact same way, without. Anyway, this is a short response, I'll post another as time allows.
Okay then I'll eliminate time from my theory:lol:. Well actually I was just kidding about eliminating time from my theory, but I do have a suggestion. When Link drawed the Master Sword from its pedastal he was too young to weild the blade of evil's bane, and the Sword placed him in a stasis field until he became worthy of the mighty weapon, so really he wasn't time traveling, just sleeping in suspended animation for seven years.
Still though Link could go back to his childhood days by placing the Master Sword back into its pedastal. Perhaps Link had made some bondage with the sacred blade, and the blade had placed him in some reverse stasis that allowed him to be the child that was not yet ready to weild it. The Master Sword is said to be like a key of sorts, distributing all sorts of powers besides just vanquishing evil, so who knows what powers it might display.
Wow, that does sound a bit far-fetched, still Link never really traveled through the future, but he did travel through the past, but I assume that the Hylians thought that the hero was a time traveler, and thus why they dubbed the nickname to him as the "Hero of Time". If one should really consider on which Link was a time traveler it would have to be the Oracle of Ages Link (same as the Oracle of Seasons Link, but he didn't time travel in that legend). In the Oracle of Ages he spanned four hundred years in the past, and four hundred years back to the present, that would most certainly be considered time travel. If any Link should be called a Hero of Time it should be the Oracle of Ages Link. Okay that was a bit of ranting on my part, lets get back to the subject.
So here is what I have come up with, Link pull the Master Sword out as a child, ends up in a stasis field, and ends up as an adult. Link as an adult puts the sword back into its pedestal and Link becomes a child again, by traveling back in time. Link then places the Master Sword back into its pedestal and goes through the stasis motion again, but of course he doesn't realize it, so to him it is just like going back and forth. Link defeats Ganon, and Zelda and the Six Sages place him in the tainted Sacred Realm. Zelda returns Link back to the past so that he can enjoy his childhood life, and he does. He visits Zelda at the end, and months later decides to go find his valuable friend in the legend of Majora's Mask. Link does all kinds of crap reinacting events of three days over and over and over again, until he defeats the demonic Mask of Majora. He saves the land of Termina, and lets assume he makes it back to Hyrule. Link this time does not go through a stasis enactment, but rather living the time that he had lost. Link then later defeats Ganon repeating the whole process. Generations pass, and the Hylians recall a legendary hero who could travel freely through time, or so they believed.
They believed this so much that when Ganon had freed himself from his accursed prison that the Hero of Time could simply just warp in thier era and save them. This however did not happen and Ganon almost plunged the world in to total darkness. The Hylians appealed to the gods, yadda, yadda, yadda, you know the picture and we move on to the Great Sea saga.
These legends had been passed down for many years and they tell the story of the Hero of Time, and the people spoken of in the backstory legend must've even made a statue of this hero, so his story was never ever forgotten. The King of Red Lions recalls a bunch of excerpts, and yakkity smackity, well you get the concept.
Okay I started getting bored of explaining towards the end, but still I don't think it looks to rough to understand.
