Essay Questions

How do "Smith of Wootton Major" and "Leaf by Niggle" reflect different aspects of Tolkien's narrative philosophy as expressed in his essay "On Fairy-Stories"?

Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories" is a complex, well-crafted explanation of Fantasy, which he calls the purest form of Art. In it, he touches upon many deep, fascinating subjects, two of which are characteristically evident in these two short stories.

"Smith of Wootton Major" is a straight-up fairy-tale, and it attempts to capture exactly what Tolkien means by the word Faërie, which he describes in the essay as "the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible. It has many ingredients, but analysis will not necessarily discover the secret of the whole." The only way to define Faërie is to experience it, and the winds of the Perilous Realm are felt in "Smith of Wootton Major," which follows Smith as he ventures through the world of Faërie while still remaining tied, albeit loosely, to his own town. The story embodies the beauty of the imagination as Tolkien describes it while portraying what it looks like to live in the world but not being of it.

"Leaf by Niggle," on the other hand, perfectly portrays another major theme in Tolkien's philosophy: sub-creation. The story of Niggle the ordinary little painter captures the beauty of Creation and all its corollaries, tying it to Christianity, death, life, and perhaps even metaphysics in a story that is likely to bring tears of joy. If "Smith of Wootton Major" is an exploration of Faërie, then "Leaf by Niggle" is a glimpse behind the curtain into the mind of someone with the drive to create and imitate Faërie, which Tolkien deems one of the highest forms of worship.

Both of these stories capture rich yet different parts of the same essay, and all three are worth a careful, slow, and wondrous read.

What is the symbolic significance of Alf the Prentice in this story?

At the beginning of the story, the old Master Cook brings on an apprentice from a faraway land, a young lad called Alf. In time, he becomes known as Prentice, and when the Master Cook leaves for his last journey, Alf becomes apprenticed to the replacement cook, an unpleasant man named Nokes. Alf seems young and inexperienced, but there's a grace and an aloofness to him that garners vague respect but never intimacy from the townspeople.

In time, however, it is revealed that Alf is in fact the King of Faërie in disguise. He is there to guide Smith through his transition, and his influence on the town is small yet wonderful. He steadfastly defends fairy-tales and the realm from which they come, functioning perhaps as a bit of a subtle Christ-figure. It is interesting to note the many other similarities to the figure of Christ: he is an incarnation of the all-powerful heavenly figure in human form, walking among other men with an ordinary form and not revealing himself until the end, right before his departure. He allows a way for some to see the light of Faërie, and his influence is life-changing for those who take his ways seriously.

This is not an allegory, and Alf does not directly represent Christ. There are enough obvious similarities here, though, to warrant a comparison, and Tolkien's point seems to be that there is Beauty (in the transcendental, heavenly sense) hidden in plain sight more often than not, as manifested by both Christ and the Fairy King, and they are always there for the right eyes to see. Faërie provides a glimpse of Heaven, but only a brief glimpse, paralleling the temporary presence of both Christ and Alf. In short, everything points to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, both in the Christian narrative and in Tolkien's constructed Secondary World.