Crossword Genius

Like Viking characters, hurry by a lot of rocks (5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

runic

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'like viking characters hurry by a lot of rocks' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.

'hurry by a lot of rocks' is the wordplay.
'hurry' becomes 'run' (running is a kind of hurrying).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a lot of' means to remove the last letter (I've seen 'lots of' mean this (the majority of the word)).
'rocks' becomes 'ice' (both can informally mean diamonds).
'ice' with its final letter taken off is 'ic'.
'run'+'ic'='RUNIC'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for runic that I've seen before include "Using Norse letters" , "Of magical signs" , "Pertaining to an ancient Germanic alphabet" , "of historic letters" , "In a Norse alphabet" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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