Tale
Old English talu ‘telling, something told’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch taal ‘speech’ and German Zahl ‘number’, also to tell1. tale (sense 2) is probably from Old Norse.
wiktionary
From Middle English tale, from Old English talu(“tale, series, calculation, list, statement, deposition, relation, communication, narrative, fable, story, accusation, action at law”), from Proto-West Germanic *talu, from Proto-Germanic *talō(“calculation, number”), from Proto-Indo-European *del-(“to reckon, count”). Cognate with West Frisian taal(“speech, language”), Dutch taal(“language, speech”), German Zahl(“number, figure”), Danish tale(“speech”), Icelandic tala(“speech, talk, discourse, number, figure”), Latin dolus(“guile, deceit, fraud”), Ancient Greek δόλος(dólos, “wile, bait”), Albanian ndjell(“to lure”), Northern Kurdish til(“finger”), Old Armenian տող(toł, “row”). Related to tell, talk.
From Middle English talen, from Old English talian(“to count, calculate, reckon, account, consider, think, esteem, value, argue, tell, relate, impute, assign”), from Proto-Germanic *talōną(“to count”), from Proto-Indo-European *del-(“to count, reckon, aim, calculate, adjust”). Cognate with German zählen(“to count, number, reckon”), Swedish tala(“to speak, talk”), Icelandic tala(“to talk”).
tale (plural tales)
etymonline
tale (n.)
Old English talu "series, calculation," also "story, tale, statement, deposition, narrative, fable, accusation, action of telling," from Proto-Germanic *talō (source also of Dutch taal "speech, language," Danish tale "speech, talk, discourse," German Erzählung "story," Gothic talzjan "to teach"), from PIE root *del- (2) "to recount, count." The secondary Modern English sense of "number, numerical reckoning" (c. 1200) probably was the primary one in Germanic; see tell (v.), teller and Old Frisian tale, Middle Dutch tal, Old Saxon tala, Danish tal, Old High German zala, German Zahl "number."
The ground sense of the Modern English word in its main meaning, then, might have been "an account of things in their due order." Related to talk (v.) and tell (v.). Meaning "things divulged that were given secretly, gossip" is from mid-14c.; first record of talebearer "tattletale" is late 15c.
