In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, Yama, the god of death, takes the life of Satyavan. His wife Savitri follows. Yama tells her: “Desist, O Savitri! Go back.” She replies, in the Ganguli translation: “Whither my husband is being carried, or whither he goeth of his own accord, I will follow him thither.”
She keeps walking beside Yama and talking with him about righteousness. He grants her boons one after another, and in the end her husband’s life.
Married women still honor her in the festival of Vat Savitri, also called Vat Purnima.