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In J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing, Mithril is a metal more valuable than gold. Gandalf the Grey, in The Fellowship of the Rings, said Mithril “could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of Mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.”1

In Peter Jackson’s movies, Mithril, in the form of a chain-mail vest worn by Frodo Baggins, was not so mysterious.

“The Mithril vest is a big cheat,” said Richard Taylor, who directed the physical effects and costumes in The Lord of the Rings movies.

“We did consider it, we did ponder it, and we were stumped by it,” Taylor said. “This is the first publication where I’ve admitted how tragically we failed to do something special. Just from a fan base, we wanted to be able to tell a neat story in the future about how cool the materials were that we investigated. We were hoping that we could somehow weave titanium twine or something like that. But it was not to be.”

In the end, the Mithril was made of lightweight, stainless-steel chain mail used for butchers’ gloves. That mail was finer than the movie’s craftsmen would have been able to produce, Taylor said, and looked appropriate when sprayed with a pearlescent paint.