By a 'handled' knife I just mean an ordinary general purpose bladed knife. Take care to choose the handle. A single, rounded piece of wood is ideal, with the knife tang passing through it and fastened at the end. This way if the handle breaks the tang can be wrapped with cloth or twine.

The middle picture shows a handle that is only riveted to the tang and would quickly cause blisters.

The bottom picture shows a handle that could break at the rivets if subject to heavy work and the short tang would make it difficult to replace the handle.