# Hugh — A Tangled Tale character guide

> Hugh in A Tangled Tale by Lewis Carroll.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** spokesman Hugh

**First appearance:** 0004-knot-i-excelsior

## Snapshot

An eager young knight-turned-tourist whose thirst for knowledge collides with his tutor's riddles, leaving him groaning in arithmetic agony one moment and laughing the next.

## Who they are

Hugh bounds from crag to crag with the agility of a fawn, chattering statistics he barely understands and teasing his grave elder companion. When a simple question about distance plunges him into an abyss of calculation, his convulsed features reveal how thin his confidence really is. As one of Balbus's two pupils, he embodies the story's central joke: the cheerful amateur who wants answers and finds only more elegant questions.

## Relationships

### [Balbus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/balbus)

_friendship_

Balbus and Hugh are close friends and frequent collaborators in solving puzzles and logical challenges.

### [Lambert](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/lambert)

_friendship_

Hugh and Lambert are close friends who often work together on puzzles and share a playful camaraderie.

### [Balbus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/balbus)

_friendship_

Balbus and Hugh are close friends and frequent collaborators in solving puzzles and logical challenges.

### [Lambert](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/lambert)

_friendship_

Hugh and Lambert are close friends who often work together on puzzles and share a playful camaraderie.

### [Balbus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/balbus)

_friendship_

Balbus and Hugh are close friends and frequent collaborators in solving puzzles and logical challenges.

## In the story

### [A Tangled Tale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/a-tangled-tale)

Puzzles over bucket displacement and acts as spokesman.

### [Knot I: Excelsior](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/knot-i-excelsior)

The younger knight, bounding down the mountain with agility, eager for knowledge but weak in statistics.

### [Knot II: Eligible Apartments](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/knot-ii-eligible-apartments)

One of the two brothers; he acts as spokesman and puzzles over the dinner party riddle.

### [Knot IV: The Dead Reckoning](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/knot-iv-the-dead-reckoning)

The younger traveler, son of Balbus, who is fatigued by the heat and offers a hasty opinion on the weighing problem.

### [Knot IX: A Serpent with Corners](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/knot-ix-a-serpent-with-corners)

Conducts bucket displacement experiment and later presents his puzzle to Balbus.

### [Knot X: Chelsea Buns](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/chapters/knot-x-chelsea-buns)

One of Clara's brothers, who propounds a puzzle about days changing at midnight and later protests the unfairness of the age puzzle.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters/hugh
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_tangled_tale_se/characters