Armitage didn’t even know his sword had been stolen until Peter Jackson brought it to his attention. He’d been equally surprised to have Orcrist join his possessions in the first place. When asked about his most memorable end-of-shoot gift from any production, the actor replied:
“Orcrist, the sword from ‘The Hobbit.’ I just did not expect to be gifted the original sword from the shoot. Actually, I had it in a lock-up and it got stolen, and someone was trying to sell it. Peter pulled me aside and said, ‘Are you hard up for money?’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Your sword’s for sale online.’ So I had to go through this whole thing of getting the police involved, but we got the sword back. Now it’s on a shelf in a very prominent place.”
Neither the circumstances of the theft, nor the identity of the thief, were given. The important thing is that Armitage got his sword back.
Tolkien fans will be quick to note the poetry of the theft. In “The Hobbit,” Orcrist was plundered by Thorin from a trolls’ lair with a pile of other knick-knacks — a location reminiscent of a modern, disheveled storage locker. It’s also worth noting that Bilbo Baggins was hired by Thorin to be a burglar, and that theft and salvage are common themes of Tolkien’s novel.
Sadly, actor Martin Freeman, who played Bilbo, was not revealed to be the thief. That would have been a little too perfect.
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