How did the legend of Zelda ever come to be?

Answer 1

If you are referring to inspiration for the game, the story that always gets told the most is that the game's lead designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, was inspired by an experience he had as a child when he found a cave near his house in Kyoto. He wanted to go in, but was scared. He went back to his house, found a lantern, and returned to the cave. With a source of light, he had more courage and was able to go in the cave and explore. Miyamoto also says that when he was a boy he found a lake near his neighborhood that he never knew was there. These experience of exploring and finding unknown places inspired the game.

The original Legend of Zelda was also partly an experiment to see if they could create a nonlinear game, a game in which you didn't necessarily have to go to "level one" if you didn't want to.