Lent with Niggle – First Installment
There was once a little man called Niggle, who had a long journey to make. He did not want to go, indeed the whole idea was distasteful to him; but he could not get out of it. He knew he would have to start sometime, but he did not hurry with his preparations.
Of the short fiction J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and published, Leaf by Niggle is probably the most fitting for the season Lent, if you are inclined towards such things. Therefore, we offer you a small series of short quotes and comments on Tolkien’s short story, something to ponder during your Lenten weeks. This post is the first instalment of “Lent with Niggle”. If you are unfamiliar with the story, read it here:
J.R.R. Tolkien: Leaf by Niggle
Lent is the time of the year when we most consider this life, and the next – memento mori. J.R.R. Tolkien had his own way of dealing with death, a reality he had to face very early in life, as a child, as a young adult, and that he reflected upon more or less obviously in much of his writing. Leaf by Niggle is undoubtedly autobiographical as well as an allegory, as can be seen right from the start, and deals less with experienced loss, but with his own death. In good Tolkien-ian manner, Leaf by Niggle begins by relating this story – his own story – to the larger historical ‘cauldron of stories’.
Allegorical meaning is signaled at once by the first sentence: ‘There was once a little man called Niggle, who had a long journey to make.’ The reason for his journey is never explained, nor how he knows that he has to make one. But there should be no doubt as to what this means. The Old English poem ‘Bede’s Death-Song’ begins, in its original Northumbrian dialect, ‘Fore thaem neidfaerae’, ‘(Be)fore the need-fare’. A ‘need-fare’, or ‘need-faring’, is a compulsory journey, a journey you have to take, and that journey, Bede declares, begins on one’s ‘deothdaege’ or ‘death-day’. So the long journey the ‘little man’ Niggle has to make – which all men have to make – is death. The image is at once ‘as old as the hills’, completely temporary, and totally familiar. This is the easiest of the equations in the extended allegory.
~ Tom Shippey: J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
Expect the second installment of “Lent with Niggle” next Wednesday!
Illustrations by Allan Lee
