What is the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1945 short story about an artist and a tree?
Answer
Leaf by Niggle
J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1945 short story about an artist and a tree is titled Leaf by Niggle.
The story follows Niggle, a painter who becomes absorbed in creating a vast tree and its surrounding landscape. He struggles to complete the whole image because ordinary duties, illness, and other people repeatedly interrupt his work. The tale explores artistic ambition, obligation, patience, and the possibility that apparently small acts can have lasting value.
Leaf by Niggle was first published in the Dublin Review in 1945. It was later collected in several Tolkien volumes, including Tree and Leaf, where it appeared alongside his essay On Fairy-Stories.
The story is often read autobiographically, but it should not be reduced to a direct account of Tolkien’s life. Its tree imagery and concern with unfinished creation invite comparisons with Tolkien’s own legendarium, while the story remains a self-contained modern fairy tale.