Scheherazade of the 1,001 Nights

Scheherazade is a legendary character from the collection of Middle Eastern tales known as The 1,001 Nights and she serves as the framing device for all of the stories.
 
According to the stories, the monarch, Shahryar, who ruled over the Persian Empire, discovered his wife was unfaithful and believed that all women would eventually betray him. Due to this, he resolved to marry a new virgin each day and have her beheaded the next morning. For three years, his vizier  had to bring him a new virgin to marry each day, only for her to be executed the next day. The vizier is sometimes known by the name Jafar, and is the inspiration for the villainous vizier in Disney’s Aladdin, a story very loosely based on the 1,001 nights. As one would expect, the vizier eventually ran out of virgins with noble blood who he could give to his master and his daughter, Scheherazade, volunteered herself as the next bride.
 
Scheherazade was as intelligent as she was beautiful and she had a plan to save herself. Once in her new husband’s chambers, she asked if she could say a final goodnight to her sister, Dunyazad, who had secretly been prepared to ask for a story. Scheherazade told her sister a story, with the King listening in awe to every word, but she suddenly stopped, leaving the story on a cliff-hanger. When the King asked her to continue, she claimed that there was no time as dawn was coming. So desperate to hear the end of her tale, the King spared her life one more day, so she might finish.
 
The next night, Scheherazade told another tale, again stopping at a cliff-hanger, prompting the King to spare her life once more.
For 1,001 nights, Scheherazade continued this exercise, each time saving herself by another day. After this time, she told her husband that she had no more stories to tell, but by then he had grown fond of her, having fallen in love with her and regained his trust in women, as well as becoming a wise ruler, thanks to his wife’s tales.
 
Shahryar spared Scheherazade’s life permanently and officially announced her as his Queen.
 
Scheherazade is a fictional character, but her story lives on. She was known as a wise and kind woman, who had read thousands of texts of stories and histories. Fictional or not, to marry a man known for killing every wife he had and survive him, she was incredibly brave, intelligent and strong. A perfect example of a legendary female figure.