Fairy tales about journeys

Thumbelina is carried off by a toad, drifts away on a lily leaf, spends a winter with a field mouse and finally flies south on the back of a swallow she nursed back to life. Each stop is its own episode, so the tale is easy to pause.

In East of the Sun and West of the Moon a girl rides to three old women and then to the four winds, until the North Wind carries her across the sea to the castle. She makes the whole journey to undo one mistake, a drop of candle tallow.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier never chooses to travel. He falls from a window, rides a newspaper boat down the gutter, goes over the edge into a canal and is swallowed by a fish. The fish is sold at the market, and he ends up on the very table he fell from.

Hans in Luck walks home after seven years of service with a lump of gold, and on the way trades it for a horse, a cow, a pig, a goose and two stones. When the stones fall into a well he jumps for joy and runs the rest of the way to his mother with nothing at all.