Shards of Narsil

At the end of the Second Age, Elendil's great sword Narsil was already an ancient and famous weapon, forged more than three millennia earlier by Telchar of Nogrod. In the War of the Last Alliance, Elendil fell, and his sword was broken, but its remains were brought to the North-kingdom. These shards were held by Elendil's heirs throughout the Third Age, as a token of their ancestry, until the time of the War of the Ring. The shards were reforged by the smiths of Rivendell into Aragorn's sword Andúril.

At the time of the War of the Ring, the Shards of Narsil had been held by Elendil's heirs for more than three thousand years. So, not only were they an ancient heirloom of Aragorn's house, but they were prophesied to be reforged one day. We might therefore expect that they would be kept safe in Rivendell (that is, Imladris), and this indeed seems to be implied by the words heard by Faramir in his dream:

It is perhaps curious, therefore, that when Frodo and his companions meet Aragorn (as Strider) in Bree, he is carrying the Shards of Narsil with him. In the Prancing Pony, he reveals that his sword is broken a foot beneath the hilt (and he definitively identifies it as the Shards of Narsil when he refers to the prophecy of its reforging).

This raises the question of whether Aragorn carried the Shards with him at all times, apparently in place of a usable sword,² which would seem to be a rather impractical arrangement. Perhaps more realistically, we might imagine that Aragorn was carrying the broken sword at that time specifically because he intended to meet the Ring-bearer, and wanted a means to identify himself. Gandalf had mentioned the Blade that was Broken - albeit somewhat obliquely - in his letter to Frodo. If Aragorn knew of this, then revealing the Shards would help to convince the Hobbits that he was who he claimed to be.