Leaf By Niggle

"Leaf by Niggle" is a short story written by J. R. R. Tolkien in which an artist, Niggle, becomes obsessed with his recent work of art - a painting of a leaf that eventually becomes a tree, and a forest, and so on.1 Niggle feels pressured to finish the painting before he has to go on a journey. While he works, he is interrupted several times by chores, civic duties, and his neighbor named Parish. These distractions keep Niggle from completing his work. When he must go on his journey he has to leave behind his incomplete painting. This journey represents death - it was something Niggle was not prepared for just as many people are never ready to die. The allegory continues as Niggle spends time in an institution (purgatory) and eventually is released and makes it to the mountains (heaven). On his way to the mountains, Niggle finds his tree. Except, now it is real and whole and complete. Niggle is reunited with Parish and, together, they work to make the tree and surrounding forest even more beautiful. Finally, Niggle’s journey continues on past the tree and the forest, into the mountains. This short story causes people to question their own creative process, duties, and use of time on Earth.

Tolkien expresses his view on the philosophy of sub-creation.2 Niggle is an example of a sub-creator and his art is his creation. Everyone has the potential to create, a right to even, because it is a gift we have been endowed with by our Creator. J. Samuel Hammond and Marie K. Hammond concluded in their essay titled “Creation and Sub-Creation in Leaf by Niggle” that “any human being is a potential sub-creator.”2 We are all created in God’s image, the image of a creator as evidenced in Genesis 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created.”3 Therefore, like the One whose image we are created in, we should also