“Ah, Sadko,” says the Tzar of the Sea, “you took what the sea gave you, but you have been a long time in coming to sing in the palaces of the sea.  Twelve years I have lain here waiting for you.”

“Great Tzar, forgive,” says Sadko.

“Sing now,” says the Tzar of the Sea, and his voice was like the beating of waves.

And Sadko played on his dulcimer and sang.

He sang of Novgorod and of the little river Volkhov which he loved.  It was in his song that none of the girls of Novgorod were as pretty as the little river.  And there was the sound of wind over the lake in his song, the sound of ripples under the prow of a boat, the sound of ripples on the shore, the sound of the river flowing past the tall reeds, the whispering sound of the river at night.  And all the time he played cunningly on the dulcimer.  The girls of Novgorod had never danced to so sweet a tune when in the old days Sadko played his dulcimer to earn kopecks and crusts of bread.

Never had the Tzar of the Sea heard such music.

“I would dance,” said the Tzar of the Sea, and he stood up like a tall tree in the hall.

“Play on,” said the Tzar of the Sea, and he strode through the gates.  The sturgeons guarding the gates stirred the water with their tails.

And if the Tzar of the Sea was huge in the hall, he was huger still when he stood outside on the bottom of the sea.  He grew taller and taller, towering like a mountain.  His feet were like small hills.  His blue hair hung down to his waist, and he was covered with green scales.  And he began to dance on the bottom of the sea.

Great was that dancing.  The sea boiled, and ships went down.  The waves rolled as big as houses.  The sea overflowed its shores, and whole towns were under water as the Tzar danced mightily on the bottom of the sea.  Hither and thither rushed the waves, and the very earth shook at the dancing of that tremendous Tzar.

He danced till he was tired, and then he came back to the palace of green wood, and passed the sturgeons, and shrank into himself and came through the gates into the hall, where Sadko still played on his dulcimer and sang.

“You have played well and given me pleasure,” says the Tzar of the Sea.  “I have thirty daughters, and you shall choose one and marry her, and be a Prince of the Sea.”

“Better than all maidens I love my little river,” says Sadko; and the Tzar of the Sea laughed and threw his head back, with his blue hair floating all over the hall.

And then there came in the thirty daughters of the Tzar of the Sea.  Beautiful they were, lovely, and graceful; but twenty-nine of them passed by, and Sadko fingered his dulcimer and thought of his little river.

There came in the thirtieth, and Sadko cried out aloud.  “Here is the only maiden in the world as pretty as my little river!” says he.  And she looked at him with eyes that shone like stars reflected in the river.  Her hair was dark, like the river at night.  She laughed, and her voice was like the flowing of the river.