You *can* autorun backward, or in any direction for that matter including
circles, etc.:

Hit FORWARD (or BACKWARD), ENTER to open a chat window while holding your
FORWARD down, then release your FORWARD key you will stick moving forward.
Now hit ENTER again to close the chat text box without sending anything. In
my early days of EQ I didn't know about the NUMLOCK method, so I grew
accustomed to this method and still use it. One benefit is that you can hit
FORWARD and TURN RIGHT, ENTER, release your movement keys and the hit ENTER
again to close the chat window and you're running in a tight righthand
circle - or swimming in a circle. Great for practicing swimming while AFK.
To send /tells to people while charming giants I simply go BACKWARD, ENTER,
RELEASE BACKWARD, /t hey I'm charming these two., ENTER. But as they
caution George of the Jungle: "Watch out for that tree!"

Just to spam some info that not everyone that I group with seems to know:
/tell can be abbreviated to /t, and /groupsay to /g. I have not found a
shorthand for /guildsay yet. /who can be as short as "/w" or just '/' by
itself. You can see how many people are on your server with "/w all count".
You can search for other bards in the zone by doing a "/w bard", or on the
whole server with "/w all bard", with the same being true of the other
classes "/w wizard" for instance when you're trying to remember who stole
your kill. You can find out who in the zone is a certain level by saying
"/w 25" to see who's 25th, or "/w 20 40" to see who is 20th through 40th.
You can even go so far as to say something like "/w all bard 40 50" to find
all of the bards between 40th and 50th on your server.

-----
I killed about 8 HGs and several Cyclops and Giant Skeletons in Rathe Mts.
early one morning when I should have been in bed - say 1:00am to 4:00am on
Fennin Ro. I did this by stringing them non-stop. I charm one, set two at
it, run around and hymn as necessary keeping Selo's up at all costs (MM
Drums). When one wins, let charm break on the winner, lead him off a couple
hundred yards and charm him again. Now hit your "/pet guard here" button to
park your giant and go loot the loser. Charm breaks again on the winner and
you're off looking for a fresh one with a angry HG on your tail. The
previous winner is really pissed at you, so when you charm the new one and
set it against the first one, the previous match's winner is going to
continue to chase you for a while even with the new guy on his back.
Usually after two or three charms the weakened one will start duking it out
with the new one. Well it's pretty obvious which one is going to win unless
your new one is incredibly weak/unlucky and perhaps the old one has a
weapon.

As long as you're healthy and there is a supply of giants you can keep this
cycle up indefinitely. I eventually ran out of new HGs, so I had my HG
start wacking on Cyclops, Giant Skellies, even the little lizards until new
HGs popped. There was a 50th shaman watching me do this and sending me
/tells about how amazed he was. He'd never seen bard charm done. He really
was laughing when I had my HG smashing the little lizzies, but I couldn't do
it myself without zoning out and back.

Crier Sharpsong - 40th song bard on Fennin Ro