Which Tolkien short story features the characters Niggle and Parish?

Leaf by Niggle is the Tolkien short story featuring Niggle and Parish.

First published in 1945, Leaf by Niggle follows an artist named Niggle who becomes absorbed in painting a vast tree, leaf by leaf. His practical neighbor, Parish, initially seems to represent a very different attitude toward work and responsibility. The story blends allegory, fantasy, and reflections on artistic creation.

Niggle’s unfinished painting and his journey after illness allow Tolkien to explore themes of perfectionism, duty, compassion, and the relationship between an imagined work and the real world. The story is much shorter and more explicitly symbolic than Tolkien’s major Middle-earth novels.

Readers sometimes confuse it with Smith of Wootton Major, another stand-alone fairy-story published later. Leaf by Niggle is also notable because Tolkien discussed it in relation to his own creative experience, though it should not be reduced to a simple autobiography.