Editing Constrictor knot (section)

==History==

First called "constrictor knot" in [[Clifford Ashley]]'s 1944 work ''[[The Ashley Book of Knots]]'', this knot likely dates back much further.<ref name="aksday">Cyrus Lawrence Day, ''The Art of Knotting and Splicing, 4th ed.'' (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986), 112.</ref>  Although Ashley seemed to imply that he had invented the constrictor knot over 25 years before publishing ''The Ashley Book of Knots'',<ref name="ashley225"/> research indicates that he was not its only originator, but his Book of Knots does seem to be the source of subsequent knowledge and awareness of the knot.<ref name="km03_johansson">{{Citation|last=Johansson|first=Sten|title=Letters|journal=Knotting Matters|date=April 1983|number=3|location=London|publisher=[[International Guild of Knot Tyers]]|pages=13–14}}</ref><ref name="quipus">Cyrus Lawrence Day, ''Quipus and Witches' Knots'' (Lawrence: The University of Kansas Press, 1967), 110-111.</ref>

Although the description is not entirely without ambiguity, the constrictor knot is thought to have appeared under the name "gunner's knot" in the 1866 work ''The Book of Knots'',<ref name="LtL">{{cite book|author=Pieter van de Griend|title=A Letter to Lester|location=Århus|publisher=Privately published|isbn=87-983985-0-4|year=1992}}</ref><ref name="PvdGKN62">{{Cite journal|journal=Knot News|title=The Constrictor Knot Revisited|author=Pieter van de Griend|number=62|issn=1554-1843|date=July 2007|publisher=International Guild of Knot Tyers - Pacific Branch}}</ref> written under the pseudonym Tom Bowling.{{efn|name=pseudonym|The name "Tom Bowling" was widely associated with nautical themes, see [[The Adventures of Roderick Random]] and [[Charles Dibdin]].  ''The Book of Knots'' is most often attributed to Paul Rapsey Hodge or [[Frederick Chamier]].  For additional discussion see Ashley(1944), p. 11.}} The knot is described in relation to the [[clove hitch]], which he illustrated and called the "builder's knot". He wrote, "The Gunner's knot (of which we do not give a diagram) only differs from the builder's knot, by the ends of the cords being simply knotted before being brought from under the loop which crosses them."<ref name="Bowling_1890">{{Citation|last=Bowling (pseudonym)|first=Tom|year=1890|orig-year=1866|publisher=W. H. Allen|edition=6th|title=The Book of Knots|location=London|page=8}},</ref> But Bowling is simply an extraction and translation of the knotting work contained in the huge French ''{{lang|fr|Traite de L'Art  de la Charpenterie}}'', first published in 1841, which says "{{lang|fr|Le nœud de bombardier, que nous n'avons point figuré, ne differe du nœud d'artificier qu'en ce que les bouts du cordage sont croisés en nœud simple, avant de sortir de dessous la ganse qui les croise, fig.46.}}"<ref>{{cite book |first=Amand Rose |last=Emy |title=Traite de L'Art de la Charpenterie |lang=fr|trans-title=Treatise on the Art of Carpentry|url={{Google books|7xCZr0mLkDwC|pg=PA589|plainurl=yes}}|page=589|volume=2|edition=2 |publication-place=Paris |publisher=[[Éditions Dunod|Dunod]] |publication-date=1870 |oclc=1016271841}}</ref>  When J. T. Burgess copied from Bowling, he changed this text to merely state "when the ends are knotted, the builder's knot becomes the gunner's Knot."<ref name="BurgessViaCLDayAKS">[[Joseph Tom Burgess]], ''Knots, Ties, and Splices'' (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1884),  viii, 101.</ref>  Although a clove hitch with knotted ends ''is'' a workable binding knot,{{efn|name=spot-ties|A [[clove hitch]] finished with a full [[reef knot]] is still used for securing cabling in aerospace applications.  See [[Cable lacing#Styles]].}} Burgess was not actually describing the constrictor knot. In 1917, [[Alpheus Hyatt Verrill|A. Hyatt Verrill]] illustrated Burgess's clove hitch variation in ''Knots, Splices and Rope Work''.<ref name="verrill">A. Hyatt Verrill, ''Knots, Splices and Rope Work, Third Revised Edition'' (New York: Norman W. Henly Publishing Co., 1917; 2006 Dover republication), 33-35. ([http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13510/13510-h/13510-h.htm second revised edition online])</ref>

The constrictor knot was clearly described but not pictured as the "{{lang|sv|timmerknut}}" ("timber knot") in the 1916 (2nd) edition of the Swedish book ''{{lang|sv|Om Knutar}}'' ("On Knots") by Hjalmar Öhrvall.<ref name="knutar">Hjalmar Öhrvall, ''Om Knutar'', Second edition, (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1916), 78.([https://runeberg.org/knutar/ Online version])</ref>  Finnish scout leader Martta Ropponen presented the knot in her 1931 [[scouting]] handbook ''{{lang|fi|Solmukirja}}'' ("Knot Book"),<ref name="ropponen">Martta E. Ropponen, Kaarina Westling illustrator, ''Solmukirja'', Suomen Partioliiton Kirjasia N:4 (Porvoo, Finland: WSOY, 1931), 58-59.</ref> one of the first published works known to contain an illustration of the constrictor knot.<ref name="aksday"/>  Cyrus L. Day relates that, "she had never seen it in Finland, she wrote to me in 1954, but had learned about it from a Spaniard named Raphael Gaston, who called it 'whip knot', and told her it was used in the mountains of Spain by muleteers and herdsmen."<ref name="quipus"/>  The [[Finnish language|Finnish]] name "{{lang|fi|ruoskasolmu}}" ("whip knot") was a translation from [[Esperanto]], the language Ropponen used to correspond with Gaston.<ref name="aksday"/>  But even this explicit occurrence of the constrictor remains in doubt, as the name "whip knot" is not applied to the constrictor in other works, and otherwise is used for the strangle knot, tied in the ends of whip tails. Also in 1931 – and so of essentially same date as for Ropponen – James Drew presented the constrictor (as a strangle knot that can be tied [[Bight (knot)#In the bight|in the bight]]) in Lester Griswold's book, "Handicraft"; but Drew did not show it in his on book of knots later published.  (As Drew knew Clifford Ashley, it is suspected that he might have learned the knot from him; Ashley does praise Handicraft in his Book of Knots.)