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Squatter, good to see you around! I get your point, but to nitpick a bit: I’d say that good fantasy can... should... even must have scenes, interactions, and characters that don’t have real-life equivalents.
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What ho, Underhill; sorry I missed your greeting last night.
I didn't put my point awfully well (I seem to have been too concerned with inventing amusing fantasy place names), so I shall elucidate:
What I was trying to say was that the way in which people react to certain conditions is a constant, unaffected by such transient details as art, architecture, language, social structure and so forth. Fantasy as a genre invents a different social milieu (along with flora, fauna, geography and so on), but that can only be convincing if it seems likely that people could create such a society, and if the behaviour of the characters who occupy it is consistent with the world that has been created for them. Social interaction is a difficult thing to project, but we can see a convincing approach in the difference between, for example, Hobbits and Gondor's elite: the Hobbits use simple, unadorned language with a familiar, friendly approach, whereas those characters they encounter who occupy a higher station are more high-flown and courtly (at least where appropriate). You don't see Kings and Queens talking like greengrocers, or country folk speaking as though they were at the Court of St. James, and this is consistent with the world in which the action occurs. There's also a good distribution of knowledge (ie those with access to a lot of books and and interest in reading them know more of the details of their history than other characters, whose lives are less literary).
I entirely agree that there ought to be plenty of unusual events and personalities, especially when concerning such elements as magic, which don't really feature in modern life, but it's still possible to portray a hero about to face some mythic beast, or a group of yeomen who have just witnessed some amazing manifestation of arcane power, in a manner that makes the events seem likely and realistic. The situation doesn't have to be one that could arise in our world for it to be believable if handled correctly, and even the most mundane of events can seem ludicrous if unconvincingly portrayed.