What do the cluster and the axe that the Green Knight held when he came in Camelot represent?

Imagery in the narrative prose "Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight" is very important. The use of color imagery, numerology, and imagery represented
by nature all seem to provide very distinctive and important themes within the
text.

When the Green Knight arrives at King Arthur's
castle, all of the Christmastime guests are surprised by the visual image of the man.
The Green Knight is, not surprisingly, all green. In each of his hands he carries two
distinct items: a holly berry and an axe.

These items can
be described as carrying a very specific meaning as to why the Green Knight carries
each.

THE HOLY BERRY
CLUSTER

The interpretation of the meaning behind the
cluster depends on ones own personal understanding of its
importance.

Given the festivities described within the text
are during winter, the berry could represent nature's ability to survive even within the
harshest of conditions.This could represent that the Green Knight has nature on his side
and that he is naturally powerful.

Another interpretation
of the importance of the holly berry could be representative of the Green Knight's
intentions: peaceful ones (though this could be argued given the challenge offered by
the knight). Regardless that the knight seeks a potentially deadly challenge, the
berries could foreshadow that no harm will come to either man who participates in the
challenge.

THE AXE

Made by
man, typically, an axe brings only one thing- death. Gawain takes the axe to the Green
Knight's neck believing that the blow will kill him. Unfortunately for Gawain, the blow
does not kill the Green Knight and, therefore, Gawain must uphold his part of the deal
and meet the knight one year later to receive his own
blow.

In the end, the axe represents something very
different: sacrifice and forgiveness. In the end, the Green Knight accepts Gawain's
treason by his refusal to give up the sacred belt. The Green Knight admits that he
understands why Gawain refused. At Arthur's castle, after the telling of Gawain's quest,
Arthur makes all of his people wear a scarf around their own necks to honor
Gawain.

The importance of the berry and the axe show the
balance between the Green Knight's own manifestation of both natural and created being.
The Green Knight's existence contains elements of both natural and artificial
pieces.

Typical to Medieval texts, balance was very
important. Numerology and color tended to balance out both the story and the knight upon
the quest.