When part or all of a wooden match has burned away, this is what remains. Due to its brittle and disappointing nature, the word can be used as a metaphor for uselessness and surpriseddisappointment.
"There's nothing left in this matchbox but a bunch of stiltskins!"
"His legs looked like two stiltskins..."
"The iPad is about as useful as a stiltskin."
My girlfriend was laying in bed because her head was spinning from the vodka she drank so I had to have her stand up to give her the grundle stiltskin she would never forget.