The Elder Edda was a primary source for Richard Wagner's cycle of musical dramas The Ring of the Nibelungen, four interconnected operas, Rhinegold, The Valkyries, Siegfried, and The Twilight of the Gods. Wagner adapted the mythical and legendary world of the Elder Edda to express his own disquiet with the industrial revolution and political movements and developments in nineteenth-century Germany.

Two of the most important German movies of the silent era are Fritz Lang's Siegfried (1924) and Kriemhild's Revenge (1924).

The Swedish poet Victor Rydberg in Den nya Grottasongen (1891) transformed the lay of Frodi's mill into a picture of the excesses of industrialism and capitalism, and its cynical exploitation for human beings.