BĬDENTAL

the name given to a place where any one had been struck by lightning, or where any one had been killed by lightning and buried. Such a place was considered sacred. Priests, who were called bident a les , collected the earth which had been torn up by lightning, and every thing that had been scorched, and burnt it in the ground with a sorrowful murmur. The officiating priest was said condere fulgur ; he further consecrated the spot by sacrificing a two-year-old sheep ( bidens ), whence the name of the place and of the priest, and he also erected an altar, and surrounded it with a wall or fence. To move the bounds of a bidental, or in any way to violate its sacred precincts, was considered as sacrilege.