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Oh my gosh, it doesn't get much deeper than this. Essentially during a New Years feast at King Arthur's court, the Green Knight shows up. He is dressed in all green and has a sprig of holly (these shows that he is representative of nature). He challenges anyone in the court to partake in a game of his. He will allow whoever accepts the challenge to cut of his head, and in a year the Green Knight will be able to cut off the knights head. No one accepts the challenge and eventually Arthur stands up to take the challenge but Sir Gawain stands up so that Arthur won't have to risk his life. Sir Gawain readies his sword and cuts the Green Knight's head off. The Green Knight's body then bends over and picks up his head. He tells Sir Gawain that he will be expecting him at his castle in a year and then he rides off. Sir Gawain spends a year preparing and there is a lot of symbolism with his shield and stuff. He then sets out and arrives at white castle. He is greated by the king of the castle, who informs him that the lair of the Green Knight is just a few miles away, and invites Sir Gawain to spend a few days at the castle to rest. Sir Gawain accepts, and hunts with the king during the day and at night he has to resist the temptations from the king's wife. He is able to resist her on the first two days, but on the third day the queen presents Sir Gawain with a green sash. She tells him that if he wears the sash, the Green Knight will not be able to harm him. He succumbs to his fear and accepts the sash. The next day he rides out to the Green Knight's lair. As he approaches, he can hear the grinding of an axe. The Green Knight walks out of a cave and they talk for a bit. Then the Green Knight prepares to swing his axe but Sir Gawain flinches. The Green Knight mocks him for being a coward and tells him to stand still. The Green Knight swings his axe again and this time Sir Gawain does not move, but the Green Knight stops his axe right at Sir Gawain's throat and only knicks him. The Green Knight then reveals that he was really the king from the nearby castle. He tells Sir Gawain that he was testing Sir Gawain, the greatest knight of all, the whole time and tells Sir Gawain that he failed. Sir Gawain returns home, and ties the green sash around his arm and vowes to never remove it, to serve as a reminder of his shortcoming. When he returns to court, everyone celebrates and they don't understand Sir Gawain's loss.

What makes this story so deep is that it is about two things: Christianity versus Paganism and Nature versus Order. The Green Knight and the beheading game are common in Pagan myth. They represent nature and chaos. Sir Gawain, as Arthur's greatest knight, represent the highest ideals of Order and civilization. In the story Nature triumphs over order because Sir Gawain sacrificed his honor for his natural instinct to ensure his own survival. This story serves as a reminder that no matter how high our ideals, we are still fundamentally beings of nature.