Who is Rumpelstiltskin? — The fairy-tale imp behind the tip-toe dance.

The Brothers Grimm published the tale in 1812, in the first edition of their Children's and Household Tales, where it is number 55. A miller boasts to the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king locks her in a room full of straw and orders her to spin it by morning.

A little man appears and spins the straw for her. The first night she pays him with her necklace, the second night with her ring. On the third night she has nothing left, so she promises him her first child. The king marries her, and a year later she has a baby.

The little man comes back for the child. When the queen begs, he gives her three days to guess his name. On the last day a messenger finds him in the woods, dancing around a fire and singing that nobody knows his name is Rumpelstiltskin. The queen guesses right.

The ending changed between editions. In the 1812 edition, he runs away angrily and never comes back. In the oral version the Grimms first collected, he flies out of the window on a cooking ladle.

In the 1857 edition, the one most people read today, he stamps his right foot so hard that it sinks into the ground up to his waist, then grabs his left foot and tears himself in two.

The German name is Rumpelstilzchen. It is usually explained as "little rattle stilt": "-chen" makes a word small, and a rumpelstilt was a kind of goblin that rattles things. The word is related to rumpelgeist and poltergeist, mischievous spirits that make noise in a house.

The name matters in the story because it is his secret. As long as nobody knows it, he holds power over the queen. Once she says it, he loses.

Folklorists file the story under tale type ATU 500, "The Name of the Supernatural Helper". Other countries tell their own versions:

• Tom Tit Tot, from England, in Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales (1890).
• Whuppity Stoorie, from Scotland, in Robert Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1826).

He has appeared in many films and series. Billy Barty played him in a 1987 musical film. He is the main villain of Shrek Forever After (2010), and Robert Carlyle plays a version spelled Rumplestiltskin in the TV series Once Upon a Time. The guide to every Rumpelstiltskin movie lists them in order.

In 2026 an AI-generated clip of a little imp tip-toeing in a barn went viral, and people named it after him. Read what the Rumpelstiltskin meme is, or why the clip isn't from the 1987 movie.

To put yourself in the dance, upload one photo to the generator on the home page. Videos start at 10 credits.