Patrick Mohr thought his 18-carat gold wedding ring was gone for good after it slipped off his finger in a fast-moving Tuscan stream this summer. Three Italian men he had never met spent hours diving for it, texted him a photo calling him Sméagol, then flew to Ireland dressed as hobbits to hand it back in person.
Mohr, an Irishman from Dun Laoghaire near Dublin who has been married to Joanne McHugh for 16 years and has three daughters, was on a family holiday in Bagni di Lucca, near Lucca, when it happened around July 4. His children were jumping off a boulder into the Lima river and he was catching them. One grabbed his hand. The ring, which carried years of memories beyond its roughly 2,000-euro value, vanished in the current. Mohr stood there paralyzed, certain it was lost. His wife was not ready to quit. She asked the only other people nearby, three local friends cooling off in the water, if they had goggles she could borrow. They did not. She still exchanged phone numbers and asked them to keep an eye out.
The three men, Filippo Palagi and Edoardo Poggi, both 30, and Nicola Malloggi, 35, all from Borgo a Mozzano in the province of Lucca, were not optimistic either. Palagi later told CBC’s As It Happens they assumed the ring was gone. To lift spirits they joked they would find the golden ring and return it in a Lord of the Rings-style quest that might take a thousand years. About a week later they went back. First they searched from a kayak for two days. Then they tied ropes to boulders, put on scuba masks, and dived into the rapids where the current was strongest. After roughly four hours Malloggi spotted a glint on the riverbed. He reached out and grabbed it. It was the ring. Poggi, who works at a dealership in Lucca selling restored Fiat 500s, described it as a ray of light illuminating something on the bottom. When Malloggi surfaced he was clutching the band in his fist.
Nine days after the loss Mohr was still in Tuscany, stirring pasta for dinner, when a text arrived from an unfamiliar Italian number. The message read “Hi Sméagol, look what we found” and included a photo of the ring. Mohr put the phone back in his pocket and kept stirring in shock. His wife saw his face and asked what happened. When he showed her and the girls, the kitchen filled with disbelief and then chaos. The three men decided mailing the ring was not enough. They would fly to Ireland, stay in character as Frodo, Merry and Sam, and deliver it themselves while playing music from the films. Mohr, whom they dubbed Gandalf, agreed. On October 1 they arrived in Dublin.
They approached Mohr’s home dressed as the hobbits. He welcomed them in. That evening they became friends. Mohr took them to Glendalough, the lake and monastic site more than a thousand years old, and the neighboring valley of Glenmalure. They stopped at his local pub for a pint of Guinness. Back at the house the family served a traditional Irish meal. Mohr and McHugh gave each of the three men an engraved silver bracelet with his hobbit name. The Italians brought vin santo and cantuccini. The three stayed a week, following an itinerary Mohr suggested, and explored more of Ireland. Palagi told the CBC that before the ring they never knew each other, and now they have a family in Ireland. Mohr said the experience changed how he thinks about asking for help. Sometimes you put something out into the universe and you get an answer.
The story first appeared in the Italian paper Il Tirreno in early October, then spread through The Times, CBC Radio, Corriere della Sera and other outlets. Photos show the three men holding the recovered ring in Tuscany and later sitting down to dinner with Mohr’s family in Ireland. No money changed hands. No one was required to do any of it. The ring is back on Mohr’s finger. The three friends from Borgo a Mozzano and the family in Dun Laoghaire keep in touch. They have already talked about meeting again next summer.
