Scheherazade was the famed storyteller of The One Thousand and One Nights.
According to the frame tale of The One Thousand and One Nights, many years ago, the king in ancient Persia discovered that his wife had been cheating on him. In his anger and disappointment, he had his wife executed, vowing to marry a virgin every day and ordering her to be executed after the wedding night! He consequently married and executed all the young women in the kingdom until his chief advisor’s daughter, Scheherazade, asked her father if she could marry the king. Her father, deeply concerned about his daughter’s safety, tried to persuade her against this, but she had a plan and persisted.
Scheherazade was a beautiful, well-read and intelligent young woman who was a gifted storyteller, weaving stories with spiritual and moral lessons for her listeners. Following her marriage to the king, on their wedding night, she captivated him with a story that went on late into the night, causing the king to allow her a stay of execution in order to finish her story the following evening. The clever Scheherazade continued to weave ever more fantastic and adventure-filled stories, each night leaving the king on tenter-hooks to discover what happened next.
And so the King kept Scheherazade alive as he eagerly anticipated each new story, until, one thousand and one adventurous nights, and three sons later, the king eventually let go of his fear of women, fell in love with the beautiful Scheherazade … and they both lived happily ever after …
THE END
Credits:
- Image 1 from https://www.ncsymphony.org/events/225/scheherazade/
- Image 2 from https://www.pinterest.nz/pin/352969689522565394/?nic=1a
- Image 3 from Scheherazade
- Story from Scheherazade Initiatives