J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1945 allegorical story about an artist named Niggle is titled Leaf by Niggle.
The story follows Niggle, a painter who wants to complete a vast picture of a tree but is repeatedly distracted by practical duties and concern for his neighbor. He is eventually taken on a journey that resembles a passage through death, judgment, and healing. In the next stage of his existence, he discovers that parts of his imagined tree have become real.
Leaf by Niggle is one of Tolkien’s most explicitly allegorical works. It reflects themes of artistic creation, unfinished work, charity, mortality, and the relationship between small acts of kindness and larger ambitions. The story was first published in the Dublin Review in 1945.
It is sometimes confused with Smith of Wootton Major, another short Tolkien fairy-story published later. Niggle’s name and his unfinished tree belong specifically to Leaf by Niggle.