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.