This prose version is made from the ballad, the original of which was printed for John Wright in 1630; the second and third parts were written about 1700. Like most of its class, it seems to have had a northern origin. The German "Daumerling," or little Thumb, was, like Tom, swallowed by a cow; and there is a Danish book which treats of "Svend Tomling, a man no bigger than a thumb, who would be married to a woman three ells and three quarters long." But tradition has it that Tom died at Lincoln, which was one of the five Danish towns of England, and there was a little blue flagstone in the cathedral, said to be his tombstone, which got lost, or at least never replaced, during some repairs early in this century. The first mention of him is in Scot's "Discoverie of Witchcraft," 1584, where he is classed with "the puckle, hobgobblin, Tom Tumbler boneles, and such other bugs," or bugbears.