History Main / TrailOfBreadCrumbs

* In the first appearance of Naga in the ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' OVA, Lina and Naga have to navigate a maze and Lina marks their trail with chalk marks so they can find their way out. Then she learns that Naga thought it was just graffiti and wiped the marks off.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': During the Season 5 finale, Daenerys drops her engagement ring from Hizdar to lead Jorah and Daario to her when she is taken by a Dothraki Khalasar.

* In the TV movie ''Series/GetSmart Again'', Professor Helmut Schmelding left a trail of books from the entrance of the warehouse that the KAOS agents were hiding in to the actual entrance of their base, starting with a copy of Hansel and Gretel.

* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime The Land Before Time V]]'', when the herd leave the Great Valley after its vegetation is devoured by the "swarming leaf-gobblers", Littlefoot and the gang leave in search for food themselves, leaving behind footprints so the herd will follow their tracks and not having to split up.

* In ''Literature/{{Pyrates}}'', while in the process of being kidnapped, Shannon leaves a trail of cookie crumbs as a hint for her friends.

* One of the stories in ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Oathblood]]'' has a more up-scale version of this. Two kidnapped children lay a trail of silk and peals so that their teachers can find them.
* Averted, then played straight in ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer''. Tom and Becky Thatcher became lost in the local caves because they ''didn't'' leave a trail (of candle-smoke marks) to find their way back. Then a couple pages later, when he was exploring side passages to try to find a way out, he used a big piece of kite string to keep from getting even more lost.
* In Creator/MichaelFlynn's ''[[Literature/SpiralArm Up Jim River]]'', the scarred man explains to the harper that her mother would have left a trail of breadcrumbs -- and then has to explain the idiom.
* In the ''Literature/OctoberDaye'' novel ''Rosemary and Rue'', Toby observes that she's wished for this in the Shadowed Hills.
* ''Literature/InCryptid'': In the short story "Snakes and Ladders", a kidnapped Alice Healy gets the Aeslin mice with her to leave a trail of candy corn so Fran and Mary can find her.
* ''Beaufort'' by Ron Leshem. The Israeli soldiers are taught to leave a trail of torn-off buttons and other items if they're kidnapped.
* At the end of ''Madness In Maggody'', Lamont Petrel is tarred-and-feathered by a gang of high school boys, then flees into the woods with his business partner Jim Bob hot on his trail. While the boys hadn't heated the tar enough to do Petrel serious injury, he unwittingly leaves a trail of tar-smears and chicken feathers behind for a furious Jim Bob to follow.
* In ''Literature/InDesertAndWilderness'' Staś tries this the moment he realizes they've been kidnapped. Unfortunately Gebhr proves GenreSavvy.
* Invoked example: In ''The Buried Life'', a laundress literally stumbles over a murder victim's body, then is rendered unconscious by an unseen attacker. The attacker ensures that the crime scene will be discovered quickly by taking clothes from the cart she'd left nearby and laying a trail of discarded garments leading from the nearby street.
* In ''[[Literature/HumanxCommonwealth For Love Of Mother-Not]]'', Flinx comes home to find that Mother Mastiff has been kidnapped. Searching her shop for clues, he discovers that a large bottle of perfume has been emptied because she'd doused herself with it to ensure that tracking animals employed by any would-be rescuers will have a clear scent trail to follow.
* In the ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "The Blue Cross", Father Brown leaves a trail of odd events for the police to follow; every time the policemen ask someone if they've seen something unusual, they're quick to remember the peculiar actions of the priest.
* In ''Literature/OlliesOdyssey'', Billy leaves a trail of action figures to mark his trail back home while searching for Ollie.
* In ''[[Literature/BrotherCadfael The Virgin In The Ice]]'', a boy taken captive by brigands punctures a large wineskin when his captors aren't watching, causing them to unwittingly leave a trail of red wine-drips frozen in the snow.
* ''Literature/AfterDoomsday''. When the female captain of the Europa is kidnapped by androids, she happens to be holding a bottle of perfume which she tips over her head, exploiting the fact that her captors have no noses. Her crew just follow the scent.
* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'': When Polly and Digory are in the Wood between the Worlds, with identical pools leading to other worlds, they mark the pool to their own world by cutting a strip out of the ground.
* In ''Literature/RoseMadder'', Rosie uses seeds to mark her path through the maze.

* ''Film/ParanormalPrison'': When Sara notices that one of the four roses that represent Mary Beth Flake is missing (which is supposed to indicate that something bad is about to happen), she finds a trail of rose petals in the prison yard and decides to follow it. This ultimately goes nowhere.

* In ''Anime/ExcelSaga'', [[IllGirl Hyatt]] uses a trail of medicine to lead Excel to her kidnappers. Unfortunately, birds then start eating the pills... and promptly die. Excel then follows the trail of dead birds back to Hyatt.

** In "Abner Comes Home", the employees of Pigskins R Us lay out a trail of dog biscuits to lure Abner, Arnold's pet pig, to their company, so they can turn him into a football. Fortunately for Abner, Arnold manages to lure him back to the Boarding House with a pile of smelly garbage.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. Dean and his GirlOfTheWeek are snatched by a {{wendigo}}, so he leaves a trail of [[ProductPlacement Peanut M&Ms]]. Sam muses that they're better than breadcrumbs because the brightly-colored sweets stand out more in TheLostWoods.

* A ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode has Arnold and friends exploring a cave on an island where Arnold leaves a trail of jellybeans to help them find their way back, which they use to help them escape the cave and two counterfeiters. Along the way, they find Harold eating the jellybeans.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Aang leaves a trail of Appa's shedded fur for Azula to follow in "The Chase", deciding to confront her personally at a place of his choice. In a GenreSavvy -- [[DividedWeFall but ultimately bad]] -- decision, Azula follows the trail herself but sends her minions to search for the other members of the [[FanNickname Gaang]].

Compare to TrailOfBlood, where the "things" left behind are blood drops. Unrelated to StoryBreadcrumbs.

* ''Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave'': Danny and his friends are exploring an underground cave system. Danny tries to mark their path by dropping a radioactive substance behind them, intending to find their way back with a Geiger counter. His plan fails when some of the substance gets caught in his upturned trouser cuff, causing multiple false-positive readings when he tries to backtrack.

* In Creator/SeananMcGuire's ''Literature/OctoberDaye'' novel ''Rosemary and Rue'', Toby observes that she's wished for this in the Shadowed Hills.

* In ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', Garfield retells Hansel and Gretel as having used cream cheese bagels instead of bread crumbs to make a trail that can help them find their way back home in cast they get lost, on their path to look for food. Nermal then asks [[FridgeLogic why did they even look for food when they already had bagels]].

Character leaves a trail of things behind, ''à la'' "Literature/HanselAndGretel".

Sometimes, as in the aforementioned tale, the trail is left to find one's way back. Other times, it's used by someone else to follow them. This is usually to represent a character's resourcefulness either as a tracker, or as a planner for when/if the need to backtrack is found.

** In Chapter 498, we learn that when [[spoiler: Kushina]] was kidnapped, she left a trail of her hair to for someone to follow. [[spoiler: Minato]] was the only one who spotted the trail, which led to their eventual RescueRomance.

* In the ''ComicBook/UncleScrooge'' story, "[=McDuck=] of Arabia," one of the nephews is kidnapped by the villains and is taken out into the infamous "Empty Quarter" desert of Arabia to force a friend to lead them to the treasure of the Queen of Sheba. Along the way, the nephew is seems to be throwing about stones randomly. In reality, he is able to secretly create an arrow out of those stones and thus gives his pursuing brothers and a local troop of Junior Woodchucks some idea of where the villains are going.
* ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} and the Banquet''. When LaResistance leader Jellibabix leads the troops of Prefect Poisonus Fungus on a wild goose chase that gets them hopelessly lost in Lugdunum's labyrinthine streets, the prefect decides to go in after them, but leaves a trail of pebbles so that he can find his way out again. Then, as Asterix and Obelix leave the city, we see the prefect's plan hit a snag...

* "Literature/HanselAndGretel" is the {{Trope Maker|s}} and TropeCodifier. The breadcrumbs ''didn't'' work; as you might expect, they were eaten by birds. The first time, they tried a trail of stones, which did work. The WickedStepmother got wise to this, and prevented them from using it a second time, so they had to resort to bread.

* ''WesternAnimation/SecretMagicControlAgency'': In reference to the original Hansel and Gretel tale, one of the magical gadgets that the SMCA gives the siblings is a set of small stones which can be dropped while travelling, and later activated so they shine a beacon of light into the sky allowing the user to retrace their steps. Hansel is seen dropping the stones at various points during the film.

* ''Film/TheHallelujahTrail:'' Oracle Jones stakes out a safe path through [[QuicksandSucks Quicksand Bottoms]] with torn up strips of his red long-johns. [[spoiler: Then Cora Massingale and the ladies of Group C move his stakes.]]

* In ''Film/GraveEncounters2'', the film students propose leaving a trail of lit glowsticks behind them as they explore the AbandonedHospital. In this case, it's the AlienGeometries of the building that make the trail useless.

* One of the stories in ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Oathblood]]'' has a more up-scale version of this. Two kidnapped children lay a trail of silk and peals, so that their teachers can find them.

* ''Beaufort'' by Ron Leshem. The Israeli soldiers are taught to leave a trail of torn off buttons and other items if they're kidnapped.

* In ''[[Literature/HumanxCommonwealth For Love Of Mother-Not]]'', Flinx comes home to find that Mother Mastiff has been kidnapped. Searching her shop for clues, he discovers that a large bottle of perfume has been emptied, because she'd doused herself with it to ensure that tracking-animals employed by any would-be rescuers will have a clear scent-trail to follow.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}''. Dean and his GirlOfTheWeek are snatched by a {{wendigo}}, so he leaves a trail of [[ProductPlacement Peanut M&Ms]]. Sam muses that they're better than breadcrumbs, because the brightly-colored sweets stand out more in TheLostWoods.

* In the pilot episode of ''Gene Roddenberry's {{Series/Andromeda}}'', Seamus Harper causes the ''Eureka Maru'' to leave a trail of pions (positively-charged ions) so that he can be tracked by the eponymous starship.

* After Commissioner Gordon is taken hostage in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', Batman tracks him down by the trail of tobacco clumps Gordon was leaving behind. Throughout the games Batman also tracks down certain places and people by following various DNA evidence, although in those cases they weren't intentionally leaving a trail.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', Elan invokes this to convince Thog that Nale won't be coming back to get him out of prison, because he didn't leave a trail of bread crumbs. Later, when the Order are in a maze-like canyon, he suggests this again, before remembering the flaw in the plan:

-->'''Kill Boy''': And then, even crazier still, there was this trail of smashed up garden gnomes... leading here. It really wasn't rocket science.

* In ''Series/FlandersCompany'' season 4, Nadège uses a trails of potato chips to lure dim-witted Gladys toward Damien's brain, in order for his personality to possess her.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': Aang leaves a trail of Appa's shedded fur for Azula to follow in "The Chase", deciding to confront her personally at a place of his choice. In a GenreSavvy -- [[DividedWeFall but ultimately bad]] -- decision, Azula follows the trail herself, but sends her minions to search for the other members of the [[FanNickname Gaang]].

* ''WesternAnimation/SuperFriends'' episode "The Mysterious Moles". While Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog are exploring underground, Marvin leaves chalk marks on the walls so they can find their way back to the surface.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' episode, "[[Recap/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehogS01E28MustaBeenABeautifulBaby Musta Been a Beautiful Baby]]", Dr. Robotnik's decrepitizer, which he intended to use to [[OvernightAgeUp age Sonic into a senior]], is put in reverse and [[BabyMorphEpisode turns Sonic, Tails, and eventually Robotnik himself into babies]]. The three are eventually found by Miss Saccharine and put in a daycare center. One of the traps Robotnik sets involves him leaving a trail of red jelly beans to a merry-go-round rigged to go off when a dog tied to it starts running. It gets foiled when Miss Saccharine Sonic and Tails to brush their teeth. After complaining that the only jelly beans he has to eat are black and green ones he doesn't like, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Robotnik sees the trail of red jelly beans and starts eating them and gets tricked into getting spun on the merry-go-round when the dog wakes up]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'' episode, "Nia and the Unfriendly Elephant", Nia is tasked with delivering a new elephant to the Animal Park. However, this elephant is stubborn and doesn't want to get into Nia's wagon. One of Nia's attempts to get her in involves her taking a wagon of apples from Percy so the elephant's keeper can leave a trail of apples to lead her into the wagon. This appears to work at first, but halfway through the trail, the elephant gets tired and lies down.

* In ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'', one of the tasks in the fifth series involved the contestants being taken out to the middle of a field wearing a blindfold and asked to walk in a random direction, still blindfolded, for three minutes before having a minute to find their way back to the starting point. In a clear nod to ''Hansel and Gretel'' they are given as literal slice of bread, with the unspoken and implicit suggestion that they should use it to mark their starting point and leave a trail for themselves. Amusingly, only [[Series/TheSmellOfReevesAndMortimer Bob Mortimer]] actually twigs to the fairy tale reference and uses the bread in the intended fashion from the start; two others, [[Series/LivingWithYourself Aisling Bea]] and Mark Watson, only realise the purpose of the bread once they've already started and are some distance away from the starting point (and Mark's bread trail ends up being eaten by a dog before he can use it), whereas two others -- [[Series/SmackThePony Sally Phillips]] and Nish Kumar -- never actually figure it out and just end up wandering around aimless and bewildered. Perhaps not surprisingly, Mortimer is the only one who finds his way back to the starting point and wins the round.