The Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardy was founded in 993 A.D. by two wizards and two witches: Godric, Helga, Rowena, and Salazar. The were charged by the Wizards' Council to create a safe haven for magic users to learn and practice during the time of upheaval due to the feud of Merlin, the Prince of Enchanters, and Morgan le Fay, the Queen of Avalon. The feud ended two years later with the death of Morgan, but the idea remained.
The location of the future school was a matter of much debate among the Founders, though all agreed that it needs to be far from distractions and dangers of the general populace. The end result were the highlands of Scotland, wild and free.
Our illustrious school has very humble beginnings. Using magic, the Founders four crafted three large, cavernous houses to protect themselves and their initial fourteen students from the weather.
The House of Godric specialized in defense and battle magic. They were the first line of defense against the savage picts, who sought to pray upon the small group, and had high casualties, until the scouts found a herd of wild griffins in the mountains. These distant cousins of hippogriffs were a union of lion and hawk, fierce and rare, which, unfortunately, caused them to be highly sought after by hunters, wishing to prove themselves, and become extinct in our day. It took many a month, but with great effort and dedication, the House of Godric managed to tame these wild and magnificent beasts, creating an unparalleled airforce and finally managing to drive the picts out, creating the safe haven the Council wished for. The griffin of Gordic himself was so rich a color, that it was rumored that Godric covered him in liquid gold every night, earning the nickname Griffin of Gold, or Griffin d'Or. The griffin fell in final battle with the pict warlord, and in his honor Gordic put the beast upon his banner, proclaiming his house to be the House of Griffindor from hereon after.
The House of Rowena was the most numerous. It housed scholars, who were dedicated to collecting, protecting and expanding the knowledge of magic. They were the heart and the purpose of the school. The blue house was the one where all new children went, and where they spend the first few years learning the basics of enchantment. Many of them left for another house once they were learned enough, and only the few, handpicked by Rowena herself, continued their studies into the deeper mysteries of the world. Those, that neither left nor were chosen, accompanied the Founder on her trips through the British Isles, forever searching for new members, born to muggles or hidden among them. Eventually, Rowena and her Chosen found a new, more efficient way to contact muggleborns. A powerful enchantment, based on the energies every newborn wizard released into world, it found magic-users at their birth and tagged them with a spell that would allow Rowena to find them wherever the life's path took them. At the age of eleven, when they should have learned their letters and numbers, one of Rowena's enchanted ravens would seek them out with a letter of admittance to the school. These children were called the children of the raven's claw, and eventually the name stuck to the entirety of the house. Thus the House of Ravenclaw was born.
The House of Salazar, on the other hand, was the least populous of the four houses. Salazar was the diplomat of the group and held a seat on the Wizards' Council itself, making him the natural choice for dealing with the political and the financial sides of the school. It was of little surprise to the rest, that he chose only the most influential of students to live and work with him. He was a harsh taskmaster and unforgiving of mistakes, causing a number of students to leave his house or be expelled in disgrace. Many of these students settled into other houses, causing a sense of superiority and elitism among Salazar's students, as well as a sense of resentment among pupils of the other three houses. Nonetheless, achievements of this House are as numerous as they are impressive. Salazar acquired a consistent and generous funding for the school from the Council, he persuaded a great many notable wizards of the time to not only act as temporary teachers in their spheres, but even donate their handwritten notes and family grimoires to the school library. One of his most impressive achievements was to track down the elusive and enigmatic wizard Merlin and persuade him not only to stay at school (in the house of Salazar, of course), but to become its first headmaster. Unfortunately, his lack of ability to see promise in muggleborns (as there were none in his house) and the ever-increasing funds Rowena wished for their search and integration would later be a cause of much strife and disagreement among the Founders. One of Salazar's most notable talents was the ability to speak to snakes, Perseltongue, which, as he often said, came from his extensive experience with politicians. He even put a snake on his house's banner, marking themselves as the slithering serpents, or the House of Slytherin.
Yet it was the House of Helga, that was was, arguably, the most important in the creation of the school. Her students were extensively trained in spells, designed for crafting, digging and building, as well as engineering and architecture. Along with one of local settlers and a longtime student of Helga's, Hengist of Woodcroft, they created a small village around the four houses, populated solely by wizards. Godric's old battle-friends, Salazar's influencial acquaintances, as well as wizarding potioneers, wandmakers, farmers, smiths and potters. Eventually, though, Rowena and her students started complaining about the increasing population of the village and the fact that they came all the way here to avoid the general populace. Given that Helga's House was the one most suited for building, as well as responsible for the booming village, it naturally fell to her to make the new school.
Once again, there were multiple disputes among the Founders. Godric wished for a defensible position in case of future attacks, a castle. Rowena argued in favor of a wizard's tower, solitary, quiet and removed from distractions, as well as a place for her messenger ravens. Salazar demanded something impressive to show to the Council, as well as extensive dungeons – to hide their activity under a mask of placidity. It took over a year of debates as well as a help of a talented architect, student of Jabir ibn Hayyan, to create the first plan. It would take another decade, more than one generation of Helga's "Hufflepuffs", death of the original architect and the creation of an entire new brand of alcohol (firewhisky) to build the Castle of Hogwarts.