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Meaning & History
Niggle is the main character in "Leaf by Niggle", a short story written by J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of "The Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit", and many other stories. Niggle's story, however, has nothing to do with Middle Earth, the lands in which Tolkien's most famous works take place. Niggle is a simple man, who lives out in the country and enjoys painting. His central work is a massive painting of a tree, and the landscape around it. Unfortunately, he is never able to finish it. He eventually has to leave on a journey (which represents death), and when he arrives in heaven he finds that it is, for him, the landscape in his painting, and that the Tree is there, complete and living.