Not all Welsh folklore about death is solemn. Marie Trevelyan included in her 1909 collection a story, told in the dialect of the Glamorgan coast, about a Porthcawl man trying to haggle with Death himself.
Evan Bach, Little Evan, of Porthcawl had set his heart on living to a great age. When Death came to fetch him at sixty, Evan thought it "foolishly soon". He was very pleasant about it and invited Death to sit down in the fireside corner of the settle. Death said he had no time, with several more calls to make in the neighbourhood. Evan pointed out that half an hour was not much to lose in a night.
Then he tried substitutes. There was Billy James down in Newton, just gone sixty and crippled with rheumatism since forty, who would be glad to go. Death said he wanted a healthy man, of whom it would be said that he "died by the visitation of God". In that case, said Evan, there was Dewi Mawr, Big David, of Pyle, sound in wind and limb, who could walk forty miles without feeling tired. Death was hard to please. There were plenty riper than Evan down that way, Evan went on: Ned of Merthyr Mawr, Jack o' Cornelly, old Uncle Dick o' Newton, all over eighty. Too old, said Death.
At last Evan, rubbing his hands and winking, offered all his savings, nearly three thousand pounds, if Death would keep it secret. Death said money was no use to him, but that for once he would break his rule if Evan was prepared to make a bargain. Trevelyan's text goes on to the terms. The story is a local variant of an old European tale type in which a clever man tries to cheat Death, dressed in the names of real villages around Porthcawl.
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