Well, Steve, it's a Yank doing it you know, even if a southern-fried Yank. In England, I imagine it's as much a drinking song as a hunting one. I first heard it by mudcatters Rapunzel and Sedayne, who give it a rather haunting sound. When I went back and listened to Young Tradition doing it(after recording my track), I was a bit amazed by that raucous version. It now occurs to me that that is probably the traditional way of doing it.
I'm reminded of something Mitch Jane said about the coon dog song Old Blue. He said, to paraphrase, that the Dillards were at a concert where Joan Baez sang such a sad rendition of the song that people were all in tears over this old dog. But, he said, if you were ever trying to use the outhouse on a snowy winter night and some old coon dog was sheltering in there and blocking up the door, you were a lot less likely to sing the song the way Joan Baez does.