That's something that's always struck me, as well, from the first time "that guy" pulled his "broken sword" out in Bree. How could he hope to defend himself?? I can understand PJ changing the story around here, because certainly you gots to have a working sword if you're Aragorn.
I don't know if we are told anything about the mission he was on when he started tracking Frodo. Possibly he was waiting for Frodo, and took the shards of Narsil as proof of his identity? No, that wouldn't work cos he didn't know about Gandalf's letter... So what weapons did Aragorn carry to defend himself? Why did he carry Narsil? I'm sure JRRT had a reason. Maybe he always pulled that "just kidding - it's broken!" gag.
Elanor, putting "aragorn" and "narsil" in the search engine came up with
this thread. It's good like that...
[ January 06, 2003: Message edited by: doug*platypus ]