And some interesting info:
Skyward Sword Before Ocarina of Time in Zelda Timeline
July 21st, 2010 by morenoingrato
In a recent interview with Official Nintendo Magazine, Eiji Aonuma spoke about the Zelda Timeline and in particular the placement of Skyward Sword. You can check out a scanned image of the magazine to see some artwork and what Eiji had to say. The relevant tidbit is mentioned below.
“Yes there is a master timeline but its confidential document!” explains Aunuma-san. “The only people to have access to that document are myself, Mr. Miyamoto and the director of the title. We cant share it with anyone else! I have already talked to Mr. Miyamoto about this so I am comfortable in releasing this information – this title [Skyward Sword] takes place before Ocarina of Time. if I said that a certain title was ‘the first Zelda game’, then that means that we cant ever make a title that takes place before that! So for us to add titles to the series, we have to have a way of putting the titles before or after each other.”