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Tom Hanks Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” as Theory made concrete (English, College of Arts & Sciences) Abstract: J. R. R. Tolkien is best known for his fantasy trilogy, The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). Considerably less well-known is his theoretical base for that work, which appears in his “On Fairy-stories,” a long essay which begins with defining “Fairy-stories” as fantasy (like LOTR). Following that definition, he gives details of how a “fairy-story” is constructed, from what materials; he closes his essay by suggesting that all “true” fairy-stories have a “happy ending.” By the time he brings the essay to a conclusion, it is clear that to Tolkien the fairy- story ending, and even more the fantasy ending, is a “eucatastrophe,” or happy ending, comparable only to the endings of the Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. Tolkien worked out his “fairy-story” theories in The Lord of the Rings, as has been amply demonstrated. A less-well-known work is his “Leaf by Niggle,” the short story which Tolkien said was the example to show his theory in action. The manuscripts for “Leaf by Niggle” reside in the New Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK. I shall travel to Oxford on 28 July, on a teaching development grant which covers a good part of my expenses. That grant is wholly devoted to consulting concerning teaching Christianity and literature with two experts: the Reverend Dr. Dee Dyas (Executive Director, Christianity and Culture,York University, UK) and Professor Helen Cooper (Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Cambridge, UK). Following the period of that consultancy, I shall return to Oxford and work with the manuscripts of “Leaf by Niggle.” Two summers ago I did a similar project during “Baylor in Oxford 2009”; I published the resulting article in Fifteenth Century Studies this last February. I intend a similar article from this summer’s research, noting the development of the Gospel theme in “Leaf,” and following the stages of Tolkien’s conception as those stages appear in his manuscript of the short story. My target journal for the essay is Tolkien Studies, an annual journal of West Virginia University. .

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