Why the Badger? Looking at Hufflepuff's House Animal.

"What is a Hufflepuff?" While some people may say it would be quite the good finder, the answer is "a badger." The house is defined by loyalty to friends and family, willingness to take anyone in that doesn't belong and general friendliness. So, with all that in mind... why a badger?


Symbolically, the badger is supposed to be close to a bear, and was connected to the earth. However... doing a small bit more research, I realized a few other things that seem to be of interest.
First, in the case of stories... the one telling of badgers closest to what Rowling describes Hufflepuff as were from Germany as part of stories about Reynard the Fox. Though the warrior aspect and aspect of being protective were present in T.S. Elliot's Narnia series. Though this raises a question of "isn't there a better animal to use?" If a common person was asked to provide an animal that was kind to friends, a fierce protector of its own and rather accepting, one might have thought that Hufflepuff would have been better served with hound, rather than a badger, even keeping in the line with hard work and dedication. Even a bear, strong itself, would have potentially been a better house symbol, and would have established power equal to any Gryffindor.

It was this where I noticed something interesting.... the badger has connections in Irish folklore as kin to the King of Tara. So I remembered then, Salazar was born in the fen, an area in England. Wales has a connection to the red kite, a rather bronze-looking eagle... and Scotland has connections to a red lion in its heraldry. The four house animals seem to symbolize areas that make up the United Kingdom. This is a rather clever aspect to the formation of Hogwarts and seems to be a VERY subtle nod to the country as a whole, though it is also possible that Rowling doing this was entirely by accident, and this is just going far too deep into the analysis.