SPOILER Ch1 Origin of Gryffindor Lion?

[fritter_my_wig]

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Hope that's enough.

I've only read two chapters so far, family commitments meaning that I 
have to fit in odd moments between other tasks.

Someone has probably said this by now, so apologies if they have.
I just wondered why JKR had hit on the name Scrimgeour and looked it 
up.

It's the name of a Scottish clan, and of the Earls of Dundee. Their 
coat of arms? A lion rampant Or on a Jules shield (in other words, a 
gold lion on a red shield). Familiar, what? In this case, the lion 
brandishes a scimitar (the name denotes a fencer or fencing master).
The motto is Dissipate (= Disperse!, presumably referring to the 
enemy).

It makes me wonder whether this was not in fact the original 
inspiration for the Gryffindor lion. 

~Eloise