The Fellowship of the Ring Takes Customer Service Seriously

Nine days after losing his wedding ring in a fast-moving Tuscan stream, Patrick Mohr received a photograph of it from an unfamiliar Italian number with the message: “Hi Sméagol, look what we found.” This was already unusually good customer service. The three men who found it then flew roughly 1,000 miles to Ireland dressed as hobbits to hand it back.

Mohr had been holidaying near Bagni di Lucca in Tuscany with his wife, Joanne McHugh, and their three daughters. While the family were swimming in a mountain stream, he was catching his children as they jumped from a boulder. One daughter grabbed his hand, and his 18-carat gold wedding band slipped from his finger into the current.

“I just stood there a little bit paralysed with instant knowledge it’s gone,” Mohr told CBC Radio’s As It Happens. “I didn’t see much hope in it.”

The ring meant far more than its gold value. Mohr and McHugh had been married for 16 years, and the band represented their shared memories and commitment. “It’s not about the gold ring, it’s about the sentimental value of what it means,” he said.

McHugh approached three Italian men nearby — Filippo Palagi, Nicola Malloggi and Edoardo Poggi — and initially asked to borrow their swimming goggles. She then enlisted them in the search and exchanged contact details in case the river eventually decided to cooperate.

The friends first searched from a kayak. When that failed, they mounted a rather more determined underwater operation, securing themselves to boulders with ropes and diving with masks in the area where the current was strongest. Malloggi eventually spotted a glint on the riverbed, reached down and recovered the band.

The Sméagol message was an especially suitable way to announce the discovery. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Sméagol becomes obsessed with the One Ring after his cousin Déagol finds it in the River Anduin, where it had been lost by its previous owner, Isildur. Few lost-property departments come with such close literary parallels.

Rather than risk the post, Palagi, Malloggi and Poggi decided to return the ring personally. Inspired by Tolkien’s story, they travelled to Mohr’s home in Dún Laoghaire, near Dublin, dressed as Frodo, Merry and Sam. On arrival, they played music from the film series before presenting him with the wedding band.

Mohr repaid the fellowship with a tour of Ireland. He took his guests to Glendalough, the historic monastic site in County Wicklow, and the nearby Glenmalure Valley. They also visited his local pub for a pint of Guinness and joined his family for a traditional Irish meal.

What began with a ring vanishing into a river ended in a friendship between the men and their families. Mohr gave each Italian visitor a silver bracelet engraved with both his real name and his hobbit identity.

“Before that, we never knew each other, [but] now, we have a family in Ireland,” Palagi said. The wedding ring is safely home, and the fellowship appears to be continuing.