The north pole slowly moved in a circle ... inside these walls of Ming Thang, The Bright Palace, 'the mystical temple-dwelling which the emperor was supposed to frequent, carrying out the rites appropriate to the seasons'. (Ref.: Needham 3)

Likewise, the ancient Egyptians regarded the region around the north pole as special:

"... The ancient Egyptians observed the stars and the circumpolar stars they regarded as qualitatively different from the ordinary stars which arrived at the eastern horizon and later disappeard behind the western horizon. The circumpolar stars had a circular motion, whereas the ordinary ones went straight across the sky ..." (Lockyer)

In a palace with walls like cobras Osiris resided:

"...  In the Book of the Dead we are ... told that Osiris, as 'Lord of the Duat', resides in a palace whose walls are 'living cobras' ..." (Hancock 3)

According to a Japanese legend a fisherman named Urashima visited the Land-of-Spirits where time slowed down.

The tray depicted has 4 turtles engraved on the border, and at the 'takurua position' (top center) we find two 'persons'. The central plane is delineated by 2 serpents (or rather one serpent with two heads).

In Norse mythology too, the border line was defined by a snake:

"Jörmungandr ['jœrmuŋgandr], alternately referred to as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent, is a sea serpent of the Norse mythology, the middle child of the giantess Angrboða and the god Loki.

According to the Prose Edda, Odin took Loki's three children, Fenrisúlfr, Hel and Jörmungandr. He tossed Jörmungandr into the great ocean that encircles Midgard. The serpent grew so big that he was able to surround the Earth and grasp his own tail, and as a result he earned the alternate name of the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent ..." (Wikipedia)

He was hadsome of feature ... He went out alone in a boat to fish with hook and line. During three days and nights he caught nothing, but at length he caught a turtle of five colours. Wondering, he put it in the boat ... While he slept the turtle suddenly became transformed into a woman, in form beautiful beyond description ...

He said to her, 'This place is far from the homes of people, of whom there are few on the sea. How did you so suddenly come here?'

Smiling she replied, 'I deemed you a man of parts alone on the sea, lacking anyone with whom to converse, so I came here by wind and cloud.'

She is, of course, a Kami [a spirit], as he quickly understands, from a magical land that 'lasts as long as sky and earth and ends with sun and moon'. And she tempts him:

'You can come to that region by a turn of your oar. Obey me and shut your eyes.'

So presently they came to a broad island in the wide sea, which was covered with jewels. (On it was a great mansion.) Its high gate and towers shone with a brilliance which his eyes had never beheld and his ears had never heard tell. 

They enter the mansion and are received and greeted in a loving fashion by her parents: 'Seated they conversed of the difference between mankind and the Land-of-Spirits, and the joy of man and Kami meeting.

Eventually the fisherman Urashima and the beautiful sea Kami are married. Thereafter: 'For three years, far from his aged parents, he lived his life in the Spirit capital, when he began to yearn for his home and for them.' Observing the change in him, his wife asks: 'Do you desire to return home?'

He replies: 'To come to this far Spirit Land, I parted from my near and kin. My yearning I cannot help ... I wish to return to my native place to see my parents for a while'. Then we read:

Hand in hand they walked conversing ... till they came to where their ways diverged and where her parents and relatives, sorrowing to part with him, made their farewells.

The princess informed him that she was indeed the turtle which he had taken in his boat, and she took a jewel-casket and gave it to him saying: 'If you do not forget me and desire to seek me, keep this casket carefully, but do not open it.'

Thus he parted from her and entered his boat, shutting his eyes as she bade him.

In a trice Urashima finds himself back in his home village again but a terrible surprise awaits him. During the three years that he has spent enchanted on the Spirit island 300 mortal years have passed and everything has changed beyond recognition.

Stumbling around dazed and disconsolate, discovering from a passer-by that his own disappearance three centuries previously is itself now the subject of a village legend, he forgets the warning about the jewel box and opens it to remind himself of his Kami wife: 'But before he could look into it, something in the form of a blue-orchid soared up to the blue sky with the wind and clouds. Then he knew that, having broken his oath, he could not go back and see her again." (Hancock 2)

Time is measured by the revolving Great Bear (in the north) or by the revolving Crux (in the south). Therefore the poles seem to measure out time, to be the origin of time. Allen:

"... Whittier said, in his Cry of a Lost Soul: 'The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies'; which is correct for our day, as it is not now entirely visible above 27º 30' of north latitude. It was last seen on the horizon of Jerusalem - 31º 46' 45'' - about the time that Christ was crucified. But 3000 years previously all its stars were 7º above the horizon of the savages along the shores of the Baltic Sea, in latitude 52º 30' ...

Von Humboldt adds: The two great stars, which marks the summit and the foot of the Cross, having nearly the same right ascension, it follows that the constellation is almost perpendicular at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to the people of every nation situated beyond the Tropics or in the southern hemisphere.

It has been observed at what hour of the night, in different seasons, the Cross is erect or inclined.

It is a time piece, which advances very regularly nearly four minutes a day, and no other group of stars affords to the naked eye an observation of time so easily made.

How often have we heard our guides exclaim in the savannahs of Venezuela and in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, 'Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend' ...

Crux lies in the Milky Way, - here a brilliant but narrow stream three or four degrees wide, - and is noticeable from its compression as well as its form, being only 6º in extent from north to south, and less in width, the upper star a clear orange in color, and the rest white; the general effect being that of a badly made kite, rather than a cross ..."

Posnansky:

"... Schematic drawing of the 'socle of the central figure of the Sun Door' on which can be seen the 'eyes' with 'Star' signs on the coronas and the 'ring nose' as in the position of the constellation Southern Cross at nightfall at the solstices ..."

The mystery of time is a major theme of the world myths. Wikipedia:

"... The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle, a villager of Dutch descent, lives in a nice village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by all but his wife. One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the mountains.

After encountering strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew, who are playing nine-pins, and after drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village.

He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place. An old local recognizes him, however, and Rip's now grown daughter eventually puts him up ..."