Page 97 - The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots

knot” (from its use as a bag, sack or miller’s knot). The Roman historian and
scientist Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) made an odd claim for the Hercules knot,

writing in his Natural History that wounds bound with it healed quicker.
Whatever his justification for this assertion may have been, first aid instructors

today still insist that bandages and slings must be reef-knotted (although they are
unaware of Pliny’s reason for saying so). Emphasizing the unsuitability of a reef

knot for use as a bend, the British craftsman and Master Mariner Stuart E.
Grainger wrote in 1985:

Reefing a sail or tying a parcel,
A reef knot the role will fulfil.