During his labor to create The Lord of the Rings, an allegorical and autobiographical story came to J.R.R. Tolkien "like a dream." Some have described this short story, titled Leaf by Niggle (1945), as the "the hidden nucleus of Tolkien's work." As the Wade Center Podcast prepares to kick off a six-part, in-depth series on The Lord of the Rings, Drs. Crystal and David C. Downing, along with Producer Aaron Hill, sit down to discuss Tolkien's strange, convicting, and revealing tale about a little man named Niggle who cannot stop painting and obsessing over the budding leaves of his ever-growing tree.