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 "The Glass Dog"
An American Fairy Tale.

           There once lived one of the greatest wizards of all time. He would have been a happy wizard, but people were always stopping by his apartment, knocking on his door, and disturbing his experiments. One day, the wizard decided he needed a guard dog, so he could work without being interrupted.

            He went to his neighbor, a glass-blower, and asked him where he could find such a dog. “It is hard to find a good guard dog,” the neighbor replied.

            The wizard thought for a moment. “Why not make me a glass dog?” he suggested. “I am one of the greatest wizards alive; surely, I will be able to make the dog come alive.”

            The glass blower agreed to make the dog. “Make it pink,” the wizard said before leaving. “Pink is such a pretty color!”

            The next day the wizard picked up his pink dog and thanked the glass-blower. Since great wizards never use money to pay for things, he gave the glass-blower a drop of a magical potion that would cure any illness.

            The wizard returned to his home with the pink glass dog, cast a magical spell, and the dog became alive. He set the dog outside his door where it would bark at whoever came near. You may not believe it, but the pink dog was horribly fierce and kept everyone away!

            Meanwhile, the glass-blower decided to use the potion to cure his bad knees, but he got news that the most beautiful woman in the city was dying. The glass-blower had often seen her in the streets and loved her very much for her beauty. A thought came to him, and he instantly decided what to do with the potion; he went to the woman’s house.

            The woman was in bed, of course, but the mother answered the door. The glass-blower told her he had a magical potion that would cure the woman. He said he would give it to her if the beautiful woman promised to marry him. The mother hurried to the woman’s room and came back quickly. She took the magic potion and told the man that her daughter had agreed to marry him. 

            The beautiful woman was cured instantly, and she invited the glass-blower inside the house. She was in quite a hurry because she had a party to go to, but she made time to ask where the glass-blower had found the magical potion. When the glass-blower told her the story, she stopped him when he mentioned the pink dog. She clapped her hands together in a very simple way and said, “A pink dog made of glass that barks! You must get me that pink dog, or I will not marry you!”

            Wanting to marry the beautiful woman more than anything else, the glass-blower took a large sack and captured the pink dog outside the wizard’s door that very night while the dog was sleeping. He sent a messenger to deliver the dog to his fiancée.

            The next day he went to visit his beautiful fiancée, but when he reached her house, the pink dog came running out, barked fiercely and chased the man away. The glass-blower called her by phone and asked if she could tell the dog to let him come in.

            “I can’t,” replied the beautiful woman. “You see, I don’t want to marry you. I have decided you are just too ugly for me!” With that she hung up the phone.

That night the glass-blower was feeling very sad when a knock came on his door. It was the wizard. “I have lost my pink dog!” he exclaimed.

            “Perhaps you could offer a reward for finding it,” the glass-blower said sadly, trying not to look suspicious.

            “But I have no money, the only thing I have to offer is a magical beauty potion,” replied the wizard.

            “A beauty potion?” asked the glass-blower, his eyes wide open.

            “Yes,” replied the wizard, “it will make whoever drinks it the most beautiful person in the world.”

            The glass-blower told the wizard that he would immediately begin searching for the lost pink dog. A couple hours later he returned and told the wizard that the dog was at the house of the beautiful woman.

            The wizard went to the house, put a spell on the dog, and carried him home. He gave the glass-blower the potion to make himself beautiful; the glass-blower drank it immediately.

            He returned the next day to the beautiful woman. She immediately fell in love with him because he was so beautiful. They were married the next week.

            However, this story does not have a happy ending. In the end, the beautiful woman became jealous of her husband’s beauty and secretly began to hate him. She never let him out of the house. And, over time, the glass-blower found out what a horrible woman he had married; they both lived miserable, unhappy lives.

            As for the pink dog, you ask? The wizard put him outside his door where he has been keeping away visitors ever since, which is too bad, for I tried to visit him to ask him the moral of this story.