Fortune teller

A fortune teller is someone who professes to use psychic talents in order to divine an individual's future. Some also claim to have the ability to commune with the deceased, transferring messages from passed loved ones in the afterlife to their surviving family members.

In most cases fortune tellers are charlatans who use keen powers of observation and psychological manipulation to con people out of money by supposedly providing them spiritual comfort. In horror fiction, fortune tellers often hail from Gypsy stock or, at the very least, wear the trappings of what one would come to expect from a Gypsy.

In the 1941 monster movie The Wolf Man, Maleva was an old gypsy woman who traveled with her caravan to the village of Llanwelly in 1941. Her son, Bela, who worked as a fortune teller was also a werewolf, and Maleva was charged with not only keeping others safe, but keeping him safe as well. Bela was killed by Welsh aristocrat Larry Talbot, who beat him to death with a silver-tipped walking stick. Maleva presided over Bela's funeral and even exchanged words with a priest who expressed displeasure with the gypsy's pagan funerary practices. Maleva noted that these were customs that the gypsies had clung to for over a thousand years. "I could not change them, even if I wanted to", she was quoted as saying. Maleva approached Larry Talbot and explained to him how her son was a werewolf. She further illustrated that anyone who survives being bitten by a werewolf, would in turn become a werewolf themselves.

Appearances

 * Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
 * Wolf Man, The