WELCOME TO AN ENTERTAINMENT SITE FOR SCOTTISH COUNTRY DANCERS!
Enjoy this curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
March 11
Walk a Mile Day
A Mile to Ride
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
“Before judging a dancer, dance a mile in their ghillies.”
Make it to class when you can, whether on foot or by car, bus, horse, or camel! Things are always better in dance class and in good company!
This 32-bar strathspey includes long chases, hello-goodbye setting, crossing and turning, and a circle - a good way to stretch those steps and rack up the miles, dancing-wise, that is!
Do you ever wonder how many miles you have danced over the decades? Perhaps we need a new unit - the ghillie-mile, or number of pas de basques your ghillies have tallied up!
The mile is one of those wonderfully stubborn measurements that refuses to retire gracefully. Its roots go all the way back to the Romans, whose mille passus—literally “a thousand paces”—measured the distance a legion marched in 1,000 double steps, or about 5,000 Roman feet.
Centuries later, England tidied things up (in the most English way possible) and standardized the mile in 1593 as 5,280 feet, which conveniently matched the length of agricultural furlongs used in surveying fields. The furlong, literally meaning the “furrow long”— is the length a team of horses could plow in one stretch before turning the plow at the end of a field!
Fast-forward to the 20th century, when most of the world decided that the metric system was far easier than remembering how many furlongs are in anything, and switched to kilometers. The UK mostly followed along—except when it comes to road distances, pints of beer, and other sacred traditions. And of course, many horses appreciate those automotive vehicles which are still rated in horse-power units.
Meanwhile, the United States looked at the whole metric idea, nodded politely, and said, “Thanks, but we’re keeping those inches, feet, yards, and miles. Horses were not immediately available for comment! Dance on, dancers! 🤎 🧡 🤎 🕺 💃 🚩 🚩 🚩 🐎 🐎 🐎
A Mile to Ride
And speaking of famous miles ...
Across the English-speaking world, certain streets and districts have acquired the name “mile,” usually because they stretch roughly that distance or became famous promenades or commercial corridors. These “named miles” often grew into symbolic places—routes for parades, centers of nightlife, or historic thoroughfares that anchor a city’s identity.
One of the best known is the Royal Mile, the historic spine of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Running from Edinburgh Castle down to Holyrood Palace, it is lined with medieval closes, churches, and centuries-old buildings. Despite the name, it is actually a little longer than a modern mile—closer to the old Scottish mile, which was once slightly longer than the English measure.
In London, the financial district is known as the Square Mile, referring to the roughly one-square-mile area that formed the original Roman and medieval city. Even today, the term “the Square Mile” is shorthand for Britain’s financial industry and the historic core of London.
Across the Atlantic, Los Angeles developed the glamorous Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard in the 1920s and 1930s. Designed as one of the first automobile-oriented shopping districts, it featured Art Deco buildings, museums, and department stores that catered to motorists rather than pedestrians—something quite revolutionary at the time.
Other cities adopted the idea as a branding tool. Chicago has the upscale shopping corridor known as the Magnificent Mile, a stretch of North Michigan Avenue famous for its skyscrapers, luxury retailers, and holiday lights.
Denver has the 16th Street Mall, sometimes informally called the “Mile of Shopping,” reflecting the same tradition of naming a long commercial strip after the mile.
To see who the holdouts who have not yet adopted the metric system, click the sign containing the longest distance to a destination, in miles!
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
