Page 264 - Geoffrey Budworth "The Pocket Guide to Outdoor Knots"

Purpose
This traditional sling for any kind of container with a neck is a heavyweight

alternative to Asher’s bottle sling (previous page), for use in lugging around acid

carboys, giant terracotta flowerpots or water demijohns.

Tying

Tie it in the bight, beginning as shown (figures 1–2). Having relocated the two
bights at back and front of the knot (figures 3–4), arrange the various

overlapping and interwoven knot parts into the form of a plaited bracelet (figure
5). Keep the bight small and contrive it so that one end is longer than the other.

Put this over the jug, jar or bottle and tighten it (figure 6); then pass the long end
through the bight and tie both free ends together with a fisherman’s knot (pages

34–35) or a water knot (page 44, and illustrated in the diagram below) to make

two self-adjusting handles of equal size.

Knot lore

In his Log Book Notes (1899), E.N. Little called this a jar sling knot, but Johann
Röding in Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Marine (1795) had referred to it over a

century earlier as a jug sling knot. Then again, it was described in the first
century AD by the otherwise obscure Greek surgeon Heraklas for use as a

surgical sling or traction device.