Lasabrjótur
Lasabrjótur, the lock-breaker of the Huld manuscript, a stave said to open locks, fetters, and bonds. Its name literally means 'breaker of latches'. It was the kind of sign that made the Icelandic staves feared as well as respected, promising a power over iron and bindings that no ordinary key could match. In the collection of Geir Vigfússon, compiled at Akureyri in 1860, the stave is recorded with the simple instruction that it serves 'to open a lock without a key' — a task that in folk practice extended to releasing fetters, opening chests, and loosening binding magic laid on people or prope