Qhays and Layla – Layla and Majnun & Layla by Eric Claptron
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Quest:Serpentine_Love_Story
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Layla
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Creature:Qhays
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_and_Majnun
https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/12207726/Eric+Clapton/Layla
https://youtu.be/fX5USg8_1gA
Layla is Kobra Kommander’s daughter. She needs your wizard to bring a Torque to her banished lover Qhays. Qhays is hiding out in the Rubal Wastes and wants your help to stop the wedding of Layla and General Naja.
Thank you to Ali H. for pointing this one out. Dialogue from the quest quotes portions of the Eric Clapton song “Layla”
Layla and Majnun (Arabic: مجنون ليلى majnūn laylā “Layla’s Mad Lover”;) is an old story of Arab origin, about the 7th-century Arabic poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his lover Layla bint Mahdi (later known as Layla al-Aamiriya).
“The Layla-Majnun theme passed from Arabic to Persian, Turkish, and Indian languages”, through the narrative poem composed in 584/1188 by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, as the third part of his Khamsa. It is a popular poem praising their love story.
Qays and Layla fell in love with each other when they were young, but when they grew up, Layla’s father did not allow them to be together. Qays became obsessed with her. His tribe Banu ‘Amir, and the community gave him the epithet of Majnūn (“crazy”, lit. “possessed by Jinn”). Long before Nizami, the legend circulated in anecdotal forms in Iranian akhbar. The early anecdotes and oral reports about Majnun are documented in Kitab al-Aghani and Ibn Qutaybah’s Al-Shi’r wa-l-Shu’ara’. The anecdotes are mostly very short, only loosely connected, and show little or no plot development. Nizami collected both secular and mystical sources about Majnun and portrayed a vivid picture of the famous lovers. Subsequently, many other Persian poets imitated him and wrote their own versions of the romance. Nizami drew influence from Udhrite love poetry, which is characterized by erotic abandon and attraction to the beloved, often by means of an unfulfillable longing.
“Layla” (Persian: لیلا) is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally released by their blues rock band Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their only studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (November 1970). Its contrasting movements were reportedly composed separately by Clapton and Gordon. The piano part has also been controversially credited to Rita Coolidge, Gordon’s girlfriend at the time. The song was inspired by a love story that originated in 7th-century Arabia and later formed the basis of The Story of Layla and Majnun by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, because it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl, went crazy and so could not marry her. The song was further inspired by Clapton’s then-unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and fellow musician George Harrison of the Beatles.
The current list of all the (known) Mirage references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Qhays and Layla images are from Wizard101, and are copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment
Layla and Manjun image is borrowed from Wikipedia and is in the public domain.
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Vulcan Stev's Database 