Unfinished Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien [244]
But his main province was ‘the North’, and within it above all the North-west, Lindon, Eriador, and the Vales of Anduin. His alliance was primarily with Elrond and the northern Dúnedain (Rangers). Peculiar to him was his love and knowledge of the ‘Halflings’, because his wisdom had presage of their ultimate importance, and at the same time he perceived their inherent worth. Gondor attracted his attention less, for the same reason that made it more interesting to Saruman: it was a centre of knowledge and power. Its rulers by ancestry and all their traditions were irrevocably opposed to Sauron, certainly politically: their realm arose as a threat to him, and continued to exist only in so far and so long as his threat to them could be resisted by armed force. Gandalf could do little to guide their proud rulers or to instruct them, and it was only in the decay of their power, when they were ennobled by courage and steadfastness in what seemed a losing cause, that he began to be deeply concerned with them.
The name Incánus is apparently ‘alien’, that is neither Westron, nor Elvish (Sindarin or Quenya), nor explicable by the surviving tongues of Northern Men. A note in the Thain’s Book says that it is a form adapted to Quenya of a word in the tongue of the Haradrim meaning simply ‘North-spy’ (Inkā + nūs). 11
Gandalf is a substitution in the English narrative on the same lines as the treatment of Hobbit and Dwarf names. It is an actual Norse name (found applied to a Dwarf in Völuspá) 12 used by me since it appears to contain gandr, a staff, especially one used in ‘magic’, and might be supposed to mean ‘Elvish wight with a (magic) staff’. Gandalf was not an Elf, but would be by Men associated with them, since his alliance and friendship with Elves was well-known. Since the name is attributed to ‘the North’ in general, Gandalf must be supposed to represent a Westron name, but one made up of elements not derived from Elvish tongues.
A wholly different view of the meaning of Gandalf’s words ‘in the South Incánus’, and of the etymology of the name, is taken in a note written in 1967:
It is very unclear what was meant by ‘in the South’. Gandalf disclaimed ever visiting ‘the East’, but actually he appears to have confined his journeys and guardianship to the western lands, inhabited by Elves and peoples in general hostile to Sauron. At any rate it seems unlikely that he ever journeyed or stayed long enough in the Harad (or Far Harad!) to have there acquired a special name in any of the alien languages of those little known regions. The South should thus mean Gondor (at its widest those lands under the suzerainty of Gondor at the height of its power). At the time of this Tale, however, we find Gandalf always called Mithrandir in Gondor (by men of rank or Númenórean origin, as Denethor, Faramir, etc.). This is Sindarin, and given as the name used by the Elves; but men of rank in Gondor knew and used this language. The ‘popular’ name in the Westron or Common Speech was evidently one meaning ‘Greymantle’, but having been devised long before was now in an archaic form. This is maybe represented by the Greyhame used byÉomer in Rohan.
My father concluded here that ‘in the South’ did refer to Gondor, and that Incánus was (like Olórin) a Quenya name, but one devised in Gondor in earlier times while Quenya was still much used by the learned, and was the language of many historical records, as it had been in Númenor.
Gandalf, it is said in the Tale of Years, appeared in the West early in the eleventh century of