Thomas W. Allen, E. E. Sikes, Commentary on the Homeric Hymns

[109] On this primitive method of fire-making in classical times cf. schol. on Apoll. Arg. 1.1184, Sen. quaest. nat. ii. 22, Plin. N. H. xvi. 40, Hesych. s. v. “στορεύς”. Kuhn Herabkunft des Feuers p. 36.

δάφνης: the hard wood of the bay-tree was used as the “τρύπανον” or “borer”; Plin. l.c. “sed nihil hedera praestantius, quae teratur, lauro quae terat.”

ἐπέλεψε, “prune to a point,” “sharpen,” of the “τρύπανον”. This sense of “ἐπί” in composition is recognised by the lexx. in “ἐπικόπτειν, ἐπιτέμνειν” For the simple verb, of ordinary pruning, cf. Hom. Il. 1.236 “περὶ γάρ ῥά ἑ χαλκὸς ἔλεψε” | “φύλλα τε καὶ φλοιούς”. “ἐνίαλλε”, M's reading, may very possibly, as Postgate thinks, be a transposition of “λείαινε”, for which cf. Quintus xii. 136 “δ᾽ ἄπ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ὄζους λείαινον”.

As Kuhn pointed out, it is clear that a line in which the actual friction is described has been lost; otherwise the “hot blast” would have been the result of “trimming a laurel branch, held firmly in the hand, with a knife.” Moreover, the words “ἄρμενον ἐν παλάμῃ” are appropriate, not to the “τρύπανον”, but to the “στορεύς”, which need to be kept steady. The missing line must have contained a word to indicate the “στρορεύς” (perhaps “κισσός”, cf. Pliny l.c., or “ῥάμνος”, an alternative word in Hesych.) and a verb like “τρίβειν”.