Narsil
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional prehistory of the world (Arda), Narsil was the sword of King Elendil of the Dúnedain, although in a later age it was reforged as Andúril (see below).
The sword was forged during the First Age by the Dwarf Telchar of Nogrod, a famous weaponsmith and artificer who also made the blade Angrist, which cut a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth, and the Dragon-helm later used by Túrin Turambar.
The sword's name contains the elements nar and thil, "fire" and "white light" respectively in Quenya, referring to the Sun and Moon.
For whom Telchar originally made Narsil, as well as its early history, are unknown, as is its history prior to its possession by Elendil of Númenor.
One possibility is that like both Angrist and the Dragon-Helm, Narsil was first given to a prince of the Noldor, passing thence to Elros, one of the last of the three Noldorin Royal Houses: perhaps via Maglor, who cherished Elros as a son after briefly abducting him as a child.
In the Second Age, Narsil would then have been retained by Elros, Númenor's first king, and his direct heirs, until Silmariën was denied the throne because of Númenor's laws of primogeniture. In this case, Silmariën, who herself went on to found a new dynasty — the Lords of Andúnië — presumably came into possession of two of the most ancient Númenórean heirlooms, the Ring of Barahir and Narsil.
The other possibility is equally plausible, and circumstantial evidence for it can be found in The Silmarillion. Those few Númenóreans who continued to welcome the Eldar late into the Second Age led by Silmariën's descendants had been brought many gifts from Aman by their friends: perhaps one of these was Narsil.
The only certainty concerning the sword's history begins over two thousand years after Silmariën, when her distant descendant, Amandil, the last Lord of Andúnië, sent his son Elendil back to Middle-earth with Narsil towards the close of the Second Age, as he correctly guessed at Númenor's imminent destruction.
Elendil became thereafter a great king, and used Narsil in the Siege of Barad-dûr, but just as victory seemed within reach Sauron himself entered the fray. In defeating Sauron, both Elendil and Gil-galad were slain, and Narsil broke beneath Elendil. Elendil's son and heir Isildur then used the hilt-shard of the sword to cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron, vanquishing him for that time. Although his body was broken and power removed, Sauron's spirit survived when Isildur claimed the One Ring for his own.
Isildur took the shards home with him. Shortly before Isildur was killed in the second year of the Third Age in the disaster at the Gladden Fields, the shards of Narsil were rescued by Ohtar, squire of Isildur. He took them to Imladris, where Isildur's youngest son Valandil was fostered.
The Shards of Narsil became one of the heirlooms of the Kings of Arnor, and after the Northern Kingdom was destroyed they remained an heirloom of the Rangers of the North. The sword was reforged in Rivendell in 3019 T.A. during the War of the Ring, in celebration of the rediscovery and capture of the Ring with which it had become associated as its symbolic antithesis. Thereafter it was renamed Andúril, (Sindarin for "Flame of the West"), by Aragorn, the heir of Isildur. He carried the sword during his journey south as one of the Fellowship of the Ring, and it featured prominently at several points in the story, where it was sometimes referred to as the Sword that was Broken or The Sword Reforged.
Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor, travelled to Rivendell in time for the Council of Elrond because of the prophetic dream of his brother Faramir, in which he was told to "seek for the Sword that was broken". Aragorn often uses the sword to help establish his credentials and it also enables him to gain command over the army of the Dead Men of Dunharrow, cursed to a living death, who help Aragorn to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar during the siege of Minas Tirith.
Narsil (broken and reforged as Andúril) acts as a symbol of the kingship of Arnor and Gondor, and by extension, the stewardship of law over evil. As the Chieftain of the Rangers of the North, Aragorn is the heir to the fragments of the ancient sword. The reforging of the broken sword into Andúril prior to the Fellowship of the Ring leaving Rivendell is one of many important prophesied events leading up to the downfall of Sauron and the restoration of the line of Elendil as kings of Arnor and Gondor.
Changes made in the film
In the motion pictures directed by Peter Jackson, Narsil was not broken in two but in several parts (which were kept at Rivendell), and is not reforged into Andúril until the third film, when Arwen persuades Elrond to have elven smiths reforge it from the shards and bring to Aragorn. In the books, he actually wears the broken blade and shows it to the Hobbits when they meet at the Prancing Pony in Bree, and its reforging prior to the departure of the Fellowship is a decisive move toward kingship.
Aragorn holds a reverence for Andúril which is shown best in The Two Towers book, and is not shown in the film. When asked by Háma to disarm outside Meduseld, he is very reluctant, saying that normally he would give up his weapon "if I bore now any sword but Andúril" (The Two Towers, The King of the Golden Hall). It is an omission from the film on the grace that the sword Aragorn surrenders there was not Andúril, but still rather interesting. However, the movie version of The Fellowship of the Ring does include a scene of Aragorn reverently placing the hilt of Narsil back into the display after Boromir knocks it from its podium onto the floor.
In The Two Towers, it is written that Aragorn uses Andúril with a shield from Théoden's armoury during the Battle of the Hornburg. In "The Fellowship of the Ring" it is also stated that his sword was similar to Boromir's, who uses his with a shield consistently. This would suggest that it was a single-hand sword rather than the two-handed longsword depicted in the film. Elendil was supposedly 7'11", so a sword especially made for him would be oversized for a man such as Aragorn; however, Narsil was forged by a Dwarf in the First Age, long before Elendil was born in the Second — it was unquestionably not especially made for him.
The runes on the blade read "Narsil essenya, macil meletya, techar ------- en Nogrod." While Tolkien writes that there were runes engraved on the blade, this inscription is an invention of the filmmakers.
Commercial Production
United Cutlery (www.unitedcutlery.com) produces an officially licensed version of Anduril, as seen in the film.