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SME107: Tolkien’s 1945 short story “Leaf by Niggle” occupies a singular place in his body of work — allegorical, intimate, and almost confessional in its honesty. Thomas Salerno hosts Kathryn Laffrey, Rob Leonardi, and Robert King for a full reading of this short masterpiece, exploring why it continues to move readers — and why it may be Tolkien’s most unguarded self-portrait.

The discussion opens with the story’s literary texture: closer to C.S. Lewis than to the Tolkien of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, the writing invites comparison to Lewis’s The Great Divorce and Till We Have Faces, particularly in its mountain imagery and its vision of the afterlife. Both Tolkien and Lewis draw on a shared Augustinian-Platonic tradition — the unseen is more real than the seen, and the things of earth are shadows of things that are more real.

Central to the panel’s reading is the workhouse — the story’s purgatory — and the two distinct stages of Niggle’s purification. First, the burning away of earthly attachments in solitary labor: Niggle forgets why he wanted one more week, and then forgets he wanted it at all. Then, the restoration of broken relationships, as his fraught dynamic with Mr. Parrish is made whole in Niggle’s Country. The panel identifies the two mysterious voices and the porter as possible Trinitarian figures — one speaking in justice, one in mercy, and the third directing and naming — while resisting the temptation to flatten the allegory into a theological diagram.

Tolkien’s theology of sub-creation is given extended treatment: we make because we are in the image of a Maker. Niggle’s tree was never merely a painting. The panel asks whether we hold our creative work with an open hand or a clenched one, drawing parallels to Bilbo Baggins’s reluctant journey and Fëanor’s possessive attachment to the Silmarils.

The cultural critique embedded in the story — through the allegorical figures of the utilitarian Tompkins, the schoolmaster Atkins, and the apathetic Perkins — finds an unexpected echo in Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Smile.”

Artists and writers on the panel share personal experiences of learning to rest, trust the process, and keep painting — one leaf at a time.

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The new book from Starquest’s own Kaitlyn Facista: Into the Heart of Middle Earth, a heartfelt exploration of how the timeless themes and values of Tolkien’s Middle Earth can inspire and transform our everyday lives. Come on a a spiritual journey through The Lord of the Rings, uncovering the  themes, virtues, and eternal truths woven into the story—and showing how they can inspire each of us to become a “Hobbit at Heart.” Learn more at teawithtolkien.com/book.

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