How to Tie Royal Navy Sword Knots

Not many of the people are aware of “sword knot” terminology as in what is its purpose and why we use it. The royal navy sword knots are a kind of ribbon or tassel (you can say) which is found at the side of the sword hilt (hilt is a handle of a sword which consists of a guard, grip and pommel). The sword knot is attached to either guard or pommel.     

    

The purpose of attaching this sword knot is to secure the wrist so that if it were knocked from the hand of the soldier then he would not lose it in battle. By this the sword will be at the end of the hand, even if the sword is about to fall because it is tied to the wrist. So this was very helpful when on times of war.

On Which Swords Can We Tie?

The sword knots are tied on either guard or pommel side of the sword so you can tie it only on those swords which have them because then you cannot tie on  Military Gurkha Kukris or other kinds of medieval swords. So typically on artillery, cavalry and general officer’s sword, we can tie this.

How to Tie a Sword Knot?

You have this ribbon with you, but you don’t know how to tie a sword knot!! Don’t worry here in these three steps, you will get the idea.

Step 1 Hold the blade handle and then pass the knot through it in the guard of the hilt. The length should be suspended in the disproportionate manner.

Step 2 Once you have covered a turn around the sword, then pass the sword knot through and then adjust the lace.

Step 3 You can take more turns (as much you want) but at the end, knot should be hand freely.

This was the stepwise method for tying a sword knot to a royal navy officers sword. Like this you can attach to other swords (only which has hit).

The sword knot is mainly of two kinds and they are divided according to the uniform worn by military officers. The plain leather brown or black sword knot is used when wearing service dress whereas gold and silver one are used when in full dress version.