The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales is a collection of six short stories, written by Jay Williams, in 1979,[1] and published by Hippo from Scholastic.

Repulsed by the old, ugly & greedy Lord Garp, but looking to avert a possible war, Bedelia invokes an old custom of a princess setting tasks to would-be suitors (ala Princess Kaguya), and gives him an impossible task, (hoping that Lord Garp would quit his suit); to bring her a branch from a living tree of gold and jewels, which is located 1500 km away and guarded by vicious beasts.

Enraged at being caught out again, and Princess Bedelia once again refusing his suit, Lord Garp abducts her right then and there in broad daylight using magic, and locks her up in a cell in an isolated tower (ala Rapunzel), out in a remote location.

Every day, Lord Garp comes and demands her hand in marriage, and each and every time Princess Bedelia refuses him.

After a few days, Bedelia decides to try and find a way out herself, as there is no guarantee that she'll be found by anyone else; and in the tower finds three other cells, one of which is already occupied, and Bedelia helps her fellow prisoner, Prince Perian, the rightful ruler of the kingdom of Istven, break the curse of sleep (via counting sheep) that Lord Garp placed on him to usurp his throne.

However, a rain shower on the way washes the ink off the backs of his hands, and when he reaches the fork in the road where he is to turn left, Prince Marco sees that the words on his hands are gone, and is left to guess which way is 'Left'; choosing 'Right', Prince Marco ends up traveling for days and ends up in the wrong kingdom, where a beautiful-but-bored maiden at a castle window informs him that she's never heard of a Princess Aurelia.

Sylvia takes matters into her own hands and goes into the tower herself, reasoning that the giant is only under orders to kill any young man and she is a girl.

Sylvia reveals that she herself is in fact a princess, and that he has already rescued her from boredom; she'd been going stir-crazy back in her father's castle before Marco had arrived, and that she hasn't been bored since.