References to "Tom a Lynn" to 1700:

ca1475 Blind Harry the Minstrel, Acts and Deeds of Wallace, mentions “John of Lyn” (a pirate) and “Thomlyn of Wayre.” James Moir (1889) speculates that “Thomlyn” is an error for “John Lyn.”

1549 Complaynt of Scotland mentions tale of “Yong Tamlene” and “dance” of “Thom of Lynn.”

1558 Lost “Ballet of Thomalyn” licensed.

1569 Wager, “The Longer Thou Livest”: one stanza of the song (about the bridge).

ca1593 “Tomalin” is the frustrated narrator of Thomas Nashe’s comic-erotic poem, “Choice of Valentines.”

1617 Nicholas Breton, “Machiavel’s Dog,” mentions “Tom a Lin” as an avatar of the spellbinding tale-teller.

1621 Richard Johnson, History of Tom Thumbe: “Nor shal my story be made of the mad merry pranckes of … Tom a Lin, the Divels supposed Bastard.” Also mentions “the lusty Pindar of Wakefield.”

1627 “Tomalin” is a fairy in Michael Drayton’s Nimphidia, the Court of Faery (1627).

1632 The Pinder of Wakefield: earliest full text of “Tom a Lin,” a “Welch man borne.”

1646 “Tomalyn” mentioned as a place in Co. Clare.

1658 “Tomalin” is the name of the demonic familiar of Mother Sawyer, the protagonist of “The Witch of Edmonton: a known true story composed into a tragi-comedy, by divers well-esteemed poets, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford, &c.”