There lived a fortune teller in a village. People said she wasn't human, but a fox. But that wasn't what they were gossiping about. Her fortune-telling cards were what preoccupied people. They said she was in the service of evil spirits! Each card held an imp.

A girl would come to her to learn her future, and the fortune teller would say, "Come back tomorrow." Clearly, the deck wasn't full! The fortune teller had sent a card to her service!
A year of famine would strike, and the ten of diamonds would disappear from the deck. And people would begin to gossip: the cattle would give birth, and the fields would suddenly begin to overgrow with millet.

Her cards saved both people and livestock from pestilence, but the cards did more than just good.

If someone offended the fortune teller, the spade card would immediately disappear from the deck. The offender would fall ill, or the chickens would begin to die. Sometimes a stranger would come to the village, laying down his laws and harassing the villagers. The ace of spades, depicted as a dagger on the card, might disappear from the deck.

Terror-stricken, the stranger would flee the village the next day, and sometimes the offender would vanish without a trace.

Rumor had it that only during the Christmas festivities did all the evil spirits scatter throughout the land. The Fortune Teller, left without protection, would turn into a fox and flee into the forest until the holidays were over. Then she would return to the village with her deck.