the river. And still he said, "There is no girl in all Novgorod as
pretty as my little river." Every time he came back from his long
voyages--for he was trading far and near, like the greatest of
merchants--he went at once to the banks of the river to see how his
sweetheart fared. And always he brought some little present for her
and threw it into the waves.

For twelve years he lived unmarried in Novgorod, and every year made
voyages, buying and selling, and always growing richer and richer.
Many were the mothers in Novgorod who would have liked to see him
married to their daughters. Many were the pillows that were wet with
the tears of the young girls, as they thought of the blue eyes of
Sadko and his golden hair.

And then, in the twelfth year since he walked into Novgorod with the
coffer on his shoulder, he was sailing in a ship on the Caspian Sea,
far, far away. For many days the ship sailed on, and Sadko sat on deck
and played his dulcimer and sang of Novgorod and of the little river
Volkhov that flows under the walls of the town. Blue was the Caspian
Sea, and the waves were like furrows in a field, long lines of white
under the steady wind, while the sails swelled and the ship shot over
the water.

And suddenly the ship stopped.

In the middle of the sea, far from land, the ship stopped and trembled
in the waves, as if she were held by a big hand.

"We are aground!" cry the sailors; and the captain, the great one,
tells them to take soundings. Seventy fathoms by the bow it was, and