‘What is this if not magic?’ The Italian man living as a hobbit

After building his own version of Middle-earth, Nicolas Gentile has thrown a ring' into Mount Vesuvius

Nicolas Gentile, a 37-year-old Italian pastry chef, did not just want to pretend to be a hobbit - he wanted to live like one. First, he bought a piece of land in the countryside of Bucchianico, near the town of Chieti in Abruzzo, where he and his wife started building their personal Shire from JRR Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth.

Then, on 27 August, alongside a group of friends and Lord of the Rings fans dressed as an elf, a dwarf, a hobbit, a sorcerer and humans, he walked more than 120 miles (200km) from Chieti to Naples, crossing mountains and rivers, to throw the One Ring", a central plot element of The Lord of the Rings saga, into the volcano crater of Mount Vesuvius.