The protagonist of J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story Leaf by Niggle is named Niggle.
Niggle is a painter who spends so much time working on a vast picture of a tree that he neglects practical responsibilities. The story follows his frustration, his encounters with his neighbor Parish, and his eventual journey through a strange process of illness, travel, and judgment.
The tree and its leaves gradually take on a significance beyond Niggle’s original intentions. Tolkien uses the tale to explore artistic creation, duty, charity, mortality, and the possibility that a creator’s incomplete work may find a fuller existence elsewhere.
Leaf by Niggle was first published in 1945 in the Dublin Review. It is frequently described as an allegory, although Tolkien disliked treating his fiction as a simple one-to-one code. Readers often connect Niggle with Tolkien himself, but the story’s themes extend beyond biography to questions about art, work, and human limitations.