The White Bull (original title in French: Le Taureau Blanc) is a fable and a work of "contes philosophiques", a philosophical novel, written by the Age of Enlightenment-era philosopher Voltaire. The story is based on the Greek tale of Europa and the bull, where the white bull is in fact the Greek god Zeus. The date the story was written is unknown but it was published between the years 1773 and 1774. Voltaire's work seems to be prophetic in nature because the story was published only fifteen years before the French Revolution, when beheadings became common.