A great deal of interest currently gravitates towards Japanese monsters taken from traditional Japanese sources. Some of the yōkai or strange beings are the stuff of folklore, orally transmitted and propagated among the populace. There are a wide variety of yōkai in Japanese folklore. In general, yōkai is a broad term, and can be used to encompass virtually all monsters and supernatural beings, even including creatures from European folklore on occasion. Instead of yōkai, sometimes the word mononoke is used. It carries the meanings of "monster", "ghost" or "spirit", and the literal meaning is "the spirit of a thing" or "strange thing". This word is used to blame any unexplainable event on, and both inanimate objects and spirits of humans and other creatures can be called mononoke. Several anime have dealt with mononoke, perhaps most famously Princess Mononoke.