For example, what kind of story would Geralt the Witcher tell his kids? “Once upon a time there was some normal everyday shit that went how it always goes”?
Must be the equivalent of realworld kids saying “Daddy tell me the story about the Tesco delivery again! The one where they forgot the 2L bottle of Pepsi Max!”
Those things are mundane in that context.
Case in point, if you spent time with people who live in Sub-Saharan Africa and have elephants raid their crops, lions kill their kids, or hippos and crocs make every waterway dangerous, all those stuffed animals and children’s books about the zoo that Western children have are full of genuine monsters. Real life, dangerous killers. And your baby from Iowa says “bi-bo-bopimous” and it’s cute? Hippos murder people daily.
Also, you forget that plenty of people also genuinely believe in and practice magic, give things to house elves and fae, banish spirits, and take potions. That context doesn’t make stories any more or less valid. Stories make stories valid. And any context or setting removed from your own, is exotic to you.