There are various opinions concerning the name of this dance. One school of thought claims that the »gates« are the gates of the town which are opened in the morning and closed at night – hence the giving of hands in the reels of three. This sounds very plausible if one disregards the fact that the city of Edinburgh was never fortified and thus did not actually feature such gates.
The other school of thought notes that the word »gate«, in Scots, does not actually mean »gate« as in »big door«, but »street« (from the Scandinavian
gatan
) – as evidenced by well-known Edinburgh street names such as Cowgate or Canongate. A »gate«, the big door, would be a »port«, as in in the song about John Graham of Claverhouse, a.k.a. »Bonnie Dundee«:
Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,
Saddle my horses and call out my men,
And it’s Ho! for the west
port
and let us gae free,
And we’ll follow the bonnets o’ Bonnie Dundee!
So according to this theory the »gates of Edinburgh« are really the »streets of Edinburgh«.
The Gates of Edinburgh
In the towns of medieval Scotland, “gates” or “gaits” were roads or thoroughfares.
In some instances, the term continued in usage
and thus we still have in the Old Town of Edinburgh
the Canongate, the road of the early Augustinian canons of Holyrood Abbey
(See “Cadgers in the Canongate”)
and the Cowgate, the cattle road.
In Edinburgh’s New Town, far below the huddled mess of the Old Town,
Princes Street was once known as “The Long Gait”.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)