[HerenIstarion]

There's a whole story there in the title, & its almost like, on some level, we feel we 'know' that story, but just can't quite remember it, & desperately want someone to remind us how it goes. And that feeling runs through so much of Tolkien's work - glimpses of 'far off mountains' which seem at once strange, yet familiar - if only we could remember!

Excellent, davem!

But I can't leave it as mere approval without adding up a bit, even if it were a tiny bit (two coins worth, heh)

The feeling you describe strikes me as similar to what I for myself got intensively when reading LoTR for the first time, (and which haven't disappeared since, though is somewhat less intense for I know what to expect), selfsame feeling C.S.Lewis describes as joy, and which is than defined as glimpses of basic and eternal Truth seen in created artwork (but not only, it may be experienced in many modes and as a response to manifold irritants). And with Tolkien it is best defined in the poem he dedicated to said C.S.Lewis, Mythopoeia (I can't give it in full, I suppose, for the copyright's sake, but I can scrap essential bit):

Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme
of things not found within recorded time.
It is not they that have forgot the Night,
or bid us flee to organized delight,
in lotus-isles of economic bliss
forswearing souls to gain a Circe-kiss
(and counterfeit at that, machine-produced,
bogus seduction of the twice-seduced).

Such isles they saw afar, and ones more fair,
and those that hear them yet may yet beware.
They have seen Death and ultimate defeat,
and yet they would not in despair retreat,
but oft to victory have turned the lyre
and kindled hearts with legendary fire,
illuminating Now and dark Hath-been
with light of suns as yet by no man seen.

I would that I might with the minstrels sing
and stir the unseen with a throbbing string.
I would be with the mariners of the deep
that cut their slender planks on mountains steep
and voyage upon a vague and wandering quest,
for some have passed beyond the fabled West.
I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

***

In Paradise perchance the eye may stray
from gazing upon everlasting Day
to see the day-illumined, and renew
from mirrored truth the likeness of the True

This blurred (and it can't be precise, for men as the race are fallen) image of the ultimate truth, I believe, what Tolkien is after, and we his readers (whatever the issue with slavery/mastery ) feel as, what was the word? Ensorcellment. But that is the French word, and with the full respect to French, I have a suspicion Professor himself (dangerous ground again - much accused tendency of finding out what Tolkien's intentions would have been) would have preferred some genuinely English word, like, let me see - spellbound. Such a term is justified on other grounds too - spell=word, and texts consist of words. And bound - for selfwilled submitting to said mastery of the author + voluntary suspension of disbelief, are both, more or less, required from the reader to enjoy his/her reading

As for

was the Tree created as a 'gift' for Niggle, or was it there all along, & the 'gift' he speaks of simply the 'unconscious' knowledge he had all along of that 'real' (truly real) tree?

I have given it a long thought at my time indeed, and came out with the usage of the word 'niWi' for the word 'gift' in Georgian translation (the meditation on the subject has arisen as a result of my working on translation of Niggle story). Said word means in Georgian 'gift', 'present' (in an archaic sense), and 'talent' (in modern sense). My reasoning being that gift in English likewise may refer to man's abilities (as in 'he's gifted poet') So my interpretaion is that tree is A) gift for Niggle - his reward, whilst B) his ability to have glimpses of it is likewise a gift and C) third thing there is to be added - Niggle's 'talent' - i.e. sub-creative ability. Or, he may have been painting real 'true' tree of which he has had glimpses, but maybe he have been creating 'true' tree by painting glimpses of it before he went on his journey. And I rather lean to the latter option.

My wording have been clumsy in this last paragraph, I know, so I hope you followed my meaning