Many of the songs George mentions above are completely unrelated to this one, except insofar as they recount the (mis)adventures of three companions.  In any case, we are probably already dealing with two songs; A fox-hunting song and one involving a series of comic misadventures.  Peter Kennedy, for example (Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland, 1975) classes them separately.  For the purposes of this thread, however, we may as well consider these two groups to be close enough relatives to be dealt with together.  The relevant links are, therefore:

Three Jolly Sportsmen  : the version noted by Dr. Gardiner from William Taylor, Petersfield Workhouse, Hampshire in 1908, though this is not stated.  It belongs to the "foxhunt" sub-group of the song rather than to the (older?) "misunderstandings" thread.  A midi of the tune will appear at  The Mudcat Midi Pages  in due course, but can meanwhile be heard via the  South Riding Folk Network  site:

Click to play Three Jolly Sportsmen.

Three Jolly Welshmen  : an American set from Mrs Annie Stevenson, TN, 1954; with tune.
Three Jolly Welchmen  : another American version, with tune.

THE THREE HUNTERS,  which I missed the other night, is from The New Green Mountain Songster (Helen Hartness Flanders), and was noted from Paul Lorette of VT; with tune.

lyric request: fox hunting song  contains an American text of Beau Reynolds (Again from the "foxhunt" group) and the text of Three Jolly Sportsmen which was later included in the DT.

Since Masato mentions the Opies, we may as well start with them.  The main text they give is the same as the one JenEllen quotes, though they are Welshmen rather than Huntsmen.  The Opies have was for were throughout, and the final verse ends

The third said 'twas an old man,
And his beard growing grey.

They continue:

"This well-known song was embodied in a black-letter broadside ballad, Choice of Inuentions, Or Seuerall sorts of the figure of three, entered in the Stationers' Register 2 January 1632:

There were three men of Gotam,
as I haue heard men say,
That needs would ride a hunting
vpon Saint Dauids day,
Though all the day they hunting were,
yet no sport could thev see,
Untill they spide an Owle
as she sate in a tree:
The first man said it twas a Goose,
the second man said nay,
The third man said it was a Hawke,
but his Bels were falne away.

The song, it appears, was already old, for in Fletcher and Shakespeare's joint work, The Two Noble Kinsmen, which may be dated 1613, the jailor's daughter sings (III. V),

There were three fooles, fell out about an howlet
The one sed it was an owle
The other he said nay,
The third he sed it was a hawke, and her bels were cut away.

The first five verses, in their present state, 'For Little Masters and Misses', are found as early as 1760 in The Top Book of All.  These were known to James Orchard Halliwell (The Nursery Rhymes of England) in 1842, and he was later able to add the rest of the story.  In 1880 Randolph Caldecott further popularized the song with his illustrations to a Lancashire dialect version, The Three Jovial Huntsmen, beginning,

It's of three jovial huntsmen, an' a hunting they did go;
An' they hunted, an' they hollo'd, an' they blew their horns also.
Look ye there!
An' one said, Mind yo'r e'en, an' keep yo'r noses reet i' th' wind,
An' then, by scent or seet, we'll leet o' summat to our mind.
Look ye there!

They hunted, an' they hollo'd, an' the first thing they did fïnd
Was a tatter't boggart, in a field, an' that they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said it was a boggart, an' another he said, Nay;
It's just a ge'man-farmer, that has gone an' lost his way.
Look ye there!

A song comparatìve with this, which has also entered nursery collections, was possibly also old when it appeared in some sheet music about 1725:

There was 3 Jovial Welshmen, & they would hunt the Fox;
And where should they find bold Reynolds, but among the Woods & Rocks.
With a gibble, gibble, gibble, all in a merry tone,
With a hoop, hoop, hoop & hallow, & so cry'd 'ery one.

[Note: this verse contained superscripts which mostly don't work in html, so I have expanded them.]

Six verses follow.  Entitled The Pursuit of Reynard, this is found again, with fairly similar words, in The Woody Choristers (c. 1770).  It was also collected by Baring-Gould for A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes (1895) and by Alfred Williams in Folk Songs of the Upper Thames (1923). "